Germs in the Environment

Where The Bacteria Grows!

Throughout a typical day, people use a variety of different objects such as cellphones, desk, tables, computers, and door handles. But has anyone wondered how much these objects affect the bacteria on a human hand. I would assume that phone will have the most effect on the human hands, because throughout the day, people are using their phones in addition to various objects.

When testing the amount of bacteria on an object, the first thing you need to do is obtain a number of petri dishes for each tested object, a bottle of distilled water, and cotton swabs. Next, you must dip one cotton swab into the distilled water. You would then take the swab and dab it on each object. It is important to make sure you use different cotton swabs for each object. Take the cotton swab that you have swabbed on the object and swab it onto the petri dish. Repeat these steps with each object that you are testing. Once you have each petri dish contaminated, place them in an incubator. After the first test, re-test again in one week and repeat the same steps.

After collecting two weeks of samples, I have found that the keyboard had an average of 83.3 colonies of bacteria. I found that the the phone had an average of 40.5 colonies of bacteria. I found that the table had collected an average of 39.6 colonies of bacteria. Lastly, I found that the door had collected an average of 56.8 colonies of bacteria. Overall, the keyboard had collected the most bacteria.