Antigerm Science Fair Projects

Antigerm science fair projects begins at germ killing science fair projects.

PROCEDURES

1. Gather the materials.
2. Obtain the subjects.
3. Teach the method of hand washing to the subjects (six seconds on the top of the hands, six seconds on the palm of the hands, and six seconds in between the fingers).
4. Place the swabbing template (hand covering) over the left hand.
5. Take the sample with the sterile swab.
6. Take the swabbing template off the hand.
7. Take the number one hand gel, and apply 1 milliliter of it to the palm of the hand.
8. Wash the hand for fifteen seconds in the above-directed manner.
9. Put a new template on the opposite hand.
10. Repeat step number five.
11. Repeat steps three through nine with nine other subjects.
12. Repeat steps three through ten with all of the other gels, labeling each sample carefully.
13. Take the samples to the Memorial Hospital lab.
14. Transfer the bacteria onto the agar plate dishes by rolling the swab across the plate in three directions to spread a uniform inoculum over the agar plate
15. Incubate the bacteria.
16. Return to the hospital in forty-eight hours.
17. Count the number of germs in the first sample still living, in each subject’s sample.
18. Count the number of germs in the second sample of each subject.
19. Figure out the percentage of bacteria killed, after using each type of the hand sanitizers.
20. Sterilize all agar plates and other materials and kill all germs by autoclave.

RESULTS

The original purpose of this experiment was to determine which type of waterless hand cleanser would kill germs most effectively.

The results of the experiment were that the three soaps had no significant difference, although the Purell brand of hand sanitizer with a 62% of ethyl alcohol as it’s active ingredient l worked the best. The Lysol brand of hand sanitizer with 63% ethyl alcohol as it’s active ingredient had the least amount of bacteria killed.

CONCLUSION

My original hypothesis was that the hand sanitizers with highest percentage of alcohol would be more effective killing bacteria on average. I thought that the Lysol brand would be the most effective killing germs because of the higher percentage of alcohol.

The results indicate that this hypothesis should be rejected because I predicted that the Lysol brand of hand sanitizer with 63% percent alcohol as it’s active ingredient would kill the most bacteria, but the Purell brand with 62% alcohol as it’s active ingredient did the slightly better.

Because of the results of this experiment, I wonder if I would get the same results if I were to use different brands with the same alcohol percentage. I also wonder if I had changed my procedures and gone about doing my experiment in a different method, would I have gotten the same results. For example, I could have collected the germs differently or even applied them to the agar plates differently.

My findings should be useful to the public, because these hand washes are significant in reducing bacterial counts. These would be useful to a number of different people such as parents of young children, elderly people, people with health concerns, people who work in a high bacterial environment, people who people who prepare food, and people with no water convenient to them.

If I were to conduct this project again, I would make many changes.

• The most important change I would have to make would be to change my procedures. I would have grown the bacteria on an agar plate. If I would have done this, I would know that my information was accurate.
• Another thing I could do would be to take both of the bacteria samples off of the same hand.
• I would also have done a more advanced technique when I apply the germs to the agar plate because something may have gone wrong when I was applying the germs to the plates.
• Another change I would make would be more variations in the soaps I used. Instead of using three different soaps, I would use six. If I could not find any more variations in the alcohol percentages, I would use two soaps of each percentage.
• I would also do more replicas of my experiment and more trials during my experiment. 3rd party contributor

See other bacteria experiments here...