Growing Bacteria Kit

Our most popular kit for Science Fair
Includes easy-to-make nutrient agar
Step-by-step scientific method guide
Learn about germs and where they can be found!

SKU: WAGR-600

Product Description

You can smell a good science project a block away… especially when it’s SICK Science^®.

Creating an all-inclusive science fair kit can be difficult. The project has to be simple enough for young scientists to grasp, but the experiment also needs the ability to be taken further. That’s what we’ve accomplished with the Bacteria Growing Kit. It’s now wonder this kit is hugely popular with science savvy parents everywhere!

The Bacteria Growing Kit begins with the easy-to-make nutrient agar. This is the same nutrient agar used by microbiologists to grow really funky stuff in the lab. From there, everything you need is right in the kit: cotton swabs, petri dishes, and a microwave-safe plastic beaker. All that’s left to do is design your experiment. Don’t worry, we’ll help you out there, too.

What’s Included?

Bacteria Growing Kit
6 large, 10 cm (3.5″) diameter Petri dishes
6 cotton swabs

5 grams of Nutrient Agar
600 mL plastic beaker
Activity guide

What Does It Teach?

We’ve designed a kit and guide to help young scientists develop an understanding of the scientific method while learning some awesome (and disgusting) science. The hands-on method, an great guide, and some gross science is all your child needs to get a kick out of science fair. Make sure you check out the “Science Fair Connection” tab below to make sure you and your scientist grow bacteria safely and get the most out of the project you can.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it dangerous?

You are growing bacteria and bacteria is not something that you really want around. Always keep your lids and safety seals on your petri dishes. You don’t want the spores to get everywhere and grow places where you don’t want them. Also, throw the safety sealed petri dishes away in a zipper-lock bag. You don’t want to keep it because you are creating an environment for bacteria to grow and you don’t want growth to get out of hand.

How long does it take to grow?

Our little scientists were seeing results in about 24 hours with great growth after a week. Your results will be dependent on the environment.

Is there a test for the type of bacteria?

No. The lesson here is to not really be able to identify which type you are growing but instead to record the growth.

Is your agar made from seaweed?

Yes and no. By definition agar is a seaweed derivative. However, our nutrient agar also contains soy nutrients to help facilitate bacteria growth.

Science Fair Connections

Just growing bacteria in a Petri dish is not a science fair experiment. Yes, it is gross and cool and fascinating, but it doesn’t meet the requirements of a science fair project. If you want to do a science fair project about germs, you have to add a variable, or something that changes in the experiment.

With the Bacteria Growing Kit, adding an anti-bacterial hand sanitizer is a variable. Make one dish of germs and one dish of germs with a drop of the anti-bacterial sanitizer or, better yet, make three dishes–one as the control (just germs), one with an anti-bacterial sanitizer, and a third dish with another brand of anti-bacterial sanitizer. Then you can see which anti-bacterial sanitizer is more effective in killing germs. Just make sure that all three Petri dishes have germs from the same place in your home or classroom so that you know they are all exposed to the same bacteria. They also need to be grown in the same warm, dark place for the same amount of time so that the conditions are standardized as much as possible.

Growing bacteria is such a popular activity that we’ve written it up as a sample science fair project (see the link below). The sample project describes the swabbing technique to collect the germs and gives you lots of helpful hints about growing bacteria. It makes suggestions about variables and gives you some ideas to make the project your own. What it doesn’t give you is the data. What fun would that be? Don’t you want to do the experiment for yourself and see what discoveries you make?

Other ways to make the Bacteria Growing Kit into a science fair project:
Examples of Independent Variables: (choose only ONE independent variable to test)

Door Knobs
Start up question – Which door knob has the most bacteria?
Variations to the independent variable: bathroom door knob, your bedroom door knob, your front door knob

Mouths
Start up question – Which mouth is the cleanest?
Variations to the independent variable: your mouth, your mom’s mouth, your teacher’s mouth, your dog’s mouth

Dental Care
Start up question – How clean does my mouth really get?
Variations to the independent variable: no brushing, brushing, brushing and mouth wash OR test different toothpastes – before brushing/after brushing with Colgate, before brushing/brushing with Crest, before brushing/brushing with Arm & Hammer, etc.