In this exercise, you will learn use bacteria to create a work of art
Learning Objectives
At the end of the activity, you will be able to:
Abilities
Understand the importance of the correct antibiotic resistance
Skills
Streaking Bacteria
Art
Instructions
Day 1
1. Retrieve a large Kanamycin resistant plate to use as your paint palette.
2. Ask your TA for samples of the colors you will be using. In our case this will be in the form of pre-streaked plates for plasmids that are Kan-resistant. We have a yellow, blue and red.
3. Divide up your plate in thirds and label them to correspond to each color you will be using
4. Take a stick and pick up some bacteria from the given pre-streaked plates.
5. Streak throughout your third. (We want a thick layer in the whole section - we are not aiming for isolated colonies.
6. Repeat step 4 and 5 for the other two colors.
7. Place the plate upside down in the 37 Incubator overnight.
Day 2
1. Retrieve your paint palette from the freezer
2. Trace the bottom of your plate on a piece of paper. You can now make a design on the paper.
3. Place the plate back over the design you drew on the paper so that you can guide your painting.
4. Using either Q-tips or sticks you can now apply bacteria to the plates.
Be creative and try out different ideas and designs. Just remember that bacteria will grow overnight so some fine designs may get blurry but have fun and see what you can make.
