Arunadee testing and observing the growth of bacteria in petri dishes while doing her experiment. Both her and her Science Fair partner won a Special Award for Women Science and Engineering at the 2017 State Science and Technology Fair of Iowa. They also won an award at the 2017 Iowa Junior Academy of Science for Most Promising Scientists.
My name is Arunadee Fernando. I am currently an eighth grader at Ames Middle School.
Science is all around us; in the air we breathe to the food we eat. The word science is very comprehensive, and science is in everything, literally. As a young girl, my dream was to become a doctor as many children have this dream, but as I got older and became more in-depth with what life holds, I deepened my goals and dreams. When going deeper into the possibilities, I found that I still wanted to do something science-related. To me, any job requires curiosity. Going into seventh grade, my mind went into psychology and brain factors, I chose to research Optical Illusions with a friend. We tested how different activities (reading, writing, and a hand occupation) affects the brain’s perception of an optical illusion. Only after we presented, I realized, that this project was not very in depth and detailed. When science fair wrapped up for the year, I started thinking about a research topic I could do that transmits to everyday life for the next science fair. Ideas popped up everywhere, like how hand lotion affects your skin, and how dirty restaurant tables are, etc.. These ideas just didn’t capture my mind as I wanted them to.
I changed my strategy of finding a project that I could research; instead of actually looking for something, I simply waited until the light of science flashed onto me. And, it did.
My family uses chopping boards almost every day. I see my parents using chopping boards by slicing meat, fish, and vegetables onto it. At my house, we have a daily way of using chopping boards; My mom uses it and my dad cleans it! In my home, we hand wash chopping boards with soap and water. Wait a minute! Does this really kill all the bacteria left on the chopping board? What is the best way to clean a chopping board? Which leaves less bacteria, wood or plastic chopping boards? What type of food source needs the most thorough cleaning?
I decided to combine these questions into an experiment, hoping to find the answers.
Together with a peer, we started preparing for an experiment. We had to learn a lot of new fun scientific vocabulary.
We learned that a sterilized hood is where air is filtered to provide a clean environment for testing, such as bacteria. Not only that, we also learned that there are different types of incubators (shaking and non-shaking). Before starting, I needed to know how to swab bacteria onto petri dishes as I had never done it before. So, since my mom is a scientist at ISU, she took me to her lab, and one of her coworkers showed me the way to swab bacteria onto a chopping board. We were able to borrow bacteria to test. I was shown that you first have to take a sterilized needle and under a sterilized hood, take a small colony of bacteria and swab into four quadrants of a petri dish. Tentatively, I did what was shown. It wasn’t perfect, as I did it very slowly trying not to mess up. Afterwards, we grew the bacteria in an incubator at room temperature, and the next day, it was very interesting; bacteria had grown as small specks over the areas I had swabbed it on the petri dish! After learning a few more lab terms and practicing growing bacteria, I was very excited to start the experiment! We, with help from my mom, wrote down an experiment in which we would test how plastic and wooden chopping boards resist or maybe soak in bacteria or possibly non-bacteria from red meat (Beef Tenderloin), white meat (Chicken Breast), and fish (Salmon).
To conduct the experiment, I learned that there MUST be a control.
Therefore we had a negative control; wooden and plastic chopping boards on which nothing was applied-this was to see whether any of the chopping boards were contaminated to start with. We also had positive control; non-pathogenic e.Coli- this positive control went through the same stages as the food sources, but as we know there is bacteria, we are sure to get some sort of result.
Going through the experiment wasn’t always fun and exciting. Sometimes it was agonizing, for if I saw nothing had grown, I would be anxious and feel as if I needed to add more changes to the experiment. When bacteria did grow on the petri dishes, I would, with excitement, take out my lab journal and record my observations. We learned multiple ideas and thoughts from this experiment.
I also learned that science is all around you, in fact, you can find science at work in your own home.
Doing this experiment can help many people know how to serve a bacteria-free meal, as our project had more than one control, and was thought-out well. As always in science, there are things you learn and want to change when conducting an experiment. Ideas and questions that came to my mind as we did the chopping board experiment were; Why is dishwashing the better method to clean chopping boards, is it because of the extremely high temperatures, the dish soap, or a combination of both? What are the optimum temperature levels for fish and e.Coli to grow in? Would hamburgers leave more bacteria on chopping boards, as they go through more processing?
There’s only one way to find out the answers, and that is make an experiment with them!
Ideas can start out simple, but broaden and deepen as your knowledge grows. Science is truly a question in it’s own way. The only way to answer those question are to experiment with them, and dig deep and see what you will find. Now, that is science to me.