Year 3b students are waiting to see which bread will show mold first and how long until that actually happens.
Students went through all the proper experiment steps – asking questions, making a hypothesis, we will be organising the results and making conclusions once we have something to work with. We took the time out to showcase this outside of our classroom so that everyone could watch the progress of our bread but also participate as well! Everyone can come and write down what they think will happen, when and why.
Germ Experiment and the Importance of Hand Washing
What We Needed:
· Three slices of wheat bread
· Zippered sandwich bag for each slice of bread
· Gloves
· Permanent marker
· Label
What We Did:
1. Set it up. This works best if you set up the experiment after outdoor play or a trip to the playground (or other similarly dirt-laden fun) and before the children wash their hands. We waited to touch the germy bread after having been outside. We were very excited so we tried to get our hands as dirty as we could by touching outdoor equipment, the school bench and pretty much anything we could get our hands on.
2. We then “wiped” off our hands to get rid of visible dirt. (Most children believe this is clean enough!)
3. We used a permanent marker to label three sandwich bags: “Controlled”, “Clean Hands” and “Dirty Hands”.
4. We removed a slice of bread from the wrapped loaf with our dirty hands having just been outside. Our slice of bread was handled by our friends from F2 and by all of us here in Year 1. We each had a turn rubbing our hands thoroughly on both sides of the bread. After we each had a turn we placed “Bob” (as we came to call him) into the bag marked “Dirty Hands”.
5. We then washed our hands carefully with warm water and soap before taking another slice of bread and placing it in the bag marked “Clean Hands”.
6. Finally, we removed a slice of bread from the wrapped loaf using gloves that we picked up downstairs from the Nursery. With those gloves, we placed the last slice of bread in the sandwich bag marked “Controlled.”
Our question was: Which slice of bread would grow the most mold first?
All that is left now to do is wait and watch :)
