While I think the teachers' intentions are good, it's obvious that the teachers
themselves have no clue what microbiologists deal with in the "real world" i.e.
specimen growth, pathogenicity, and disposal problems. A year ago or so, a
student about the same age (or maybe he was younger) wanted to grow Staph.
aureus for a project. I'm totally amazed at the ignorance on the teachers'
parts of what students could run into when running these "projects." Perhaps
we should copy teachers' newgroups and post our beefs regarding science
projects at the high school level. I haven't looked at the newsgroups lately;
there must be something for science teachers out there.
Judy Dilworth, M.T. (ASCP)
Microbiology in hiatus
>> > >I'm doing a project for school in which I will grow bacteria and then
> > >see what grew, why that particular kind(s) grew, etc. The problem is, I
> > >don't know the first thing about growing bacteria. What do I grow it in?
> (snip)
> > Just out of curiosity what level class is this that give syou such
> > pitiful instruction? Anyone worried that you might infect yourself
> > with something that you would be better off without?.........
>> As a teacher of Microbiology I find this sort of question frightening -
> the idea of some ignorant kid mucking around with bacteria in their
> bedroom appalls me............
> How will she/he dispose of the bacterial cultures - if s/he is incapable
> of reading the first page of a Microbiology textbook?
>>
