Last Friday, we got to make cool graham cracker snacks. They were delicious! We were stimulating the biofilm experiment. Biofilm plates were used to catch organisms and sediment at different depths in the Chesapeake Bay. In the original experiment, Plexiglas plates were used - this is where our graham crackers came in. They were the base for organisms to attach to or get caught on. The Plexiglas is too slick for the things to attach to so a base has to be made. Bacteria originally created the Extracellular Polymeric Substance (slime) that caught stuff, but we had to use icing. Then, we used a lifesaver to 'bolt our plates to the substrate.' Icing on the bottom of the cracker actually attached it, but if it had been a real Plexiglas plate, a bolt could have been used. Then, we used different sprinkles to represent the different organisms in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. This was probably the most complicated part. I mean it wasn't too hard, but you had to hold the sprinkles high above your cracker and tap the bottle to get enough, but not too many organisms or you'd have to count every one of them. Oh, and I was late from SODA, so I had to chase the sprinkle bottles around the room and ask someone about every single step. Anyway, I ended up with 30 coralline algae, 9 diatoms, 14 barnacles, 11 coral, and 1 oyster. Below is a picture of my beautiful biofilm plate.
Photo courtesy of Olivia Muchmore
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