This week Darren was nice enough to show me the process of making these smaller TSA plates for sampling and how to actually sample for bacteria. This is crucial for my project because I will be looking for Staph aureus in Phoenix College's gym and maybe other places around campus and sampling is necessary. I also want to do something more with Staph aureus but I really do not have any idea what yet, but I will do more research on the bacteria and will try to think of something interesting and creative to do with it. So Darren literally walked me through the process of how to make this medium which is trypticase soy agar. He first showed me how to measure the mix of TSA that comes in a powder stage in a bucket. I believe we did 20 grams and added those 20 grams to the 500ml of DI water which is Deionized water. We put them in a beaker and heated and mixed the powder TSA in until we were able to look through it. The next step was to put that beaker and another container to take medium out of in to the autoclave which sterilizes everything. Next Darren showed me the Bio-Safety cabinet and showed me how to clean it with alcohol. While we waited for the media in the autoclave to be done we went out sampling in the bathroom and right outside the bio-sciences department. We did 20 samples from the floors, elevator buttons, stair rails, door handles, anywhere people touched. The media's time in the autoclave was done and Kimberly was nice enough to take it out for us. Darren then showed me how to use a special pipette to put the media in the empty petri dishes. I did make some mistakes but it was my first time making TSA so cut me some slack. Here are some pictures of the process and results.
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