Prepare To Be Overwhelmed With Disgust

Last week was the science fair at school.  At Ben Franklin Academy, 3rd Grade is the first time the kids do a science fair project on their own.  In the lower grades they do it in groups in class supervised by a parent volunteer.

Derek decided for his project to study the benefit of taking off shoes in the house.  He and Evan tire of my constant nagging to take their shoes off every time they come in the house, so he decided to see if there really is that much more bacteria on shoes than on feet.

He prepared some petri dishes with agar then swabbed samples from his feet, socks, and shoes as well as Glenn’s feet and shoes. 

Here were the results after one week of growth (only read on  if you really want to ruin your lunch):

1.  Derek’s school shoe

2.  Derek’s Sock that he wore inside his shoe

3.  Derek’s bare foot

4.  Glenn’s shoe that he had just worn at the airport on a business trip (it is hard to tell from the picture, but this one definitely grew the fastest and had the most yucky, fuzzy, and toxic-looking bacteria)

5.  Glenn’s bare foot

Feel free to print off the results picture and hang it next to your front door if you need a little reminder to remove your shoes in the house!  Glenn was very proud of the cleanliness of his feet, but beyond that you can see that the bottoms of the shoes were basically disgusting.  It also made me cringe about the fact that we take our shoes off and walk in bare feet while going through security at the airport.

The kids create their display boards at school without help from their parents, which kind of kills a perfectionist like me, but is probably a good learning experience for them, particularly since the science fair is non-competitive.

The groups in Evan’s class all did the same project- Which hand soap removes the most germs?

I think the Antibacterial Gel won, although that isn’t exactly a hand soap, so I think the experiment might have been flawed.  

It was fun to watch our budding scientists at work!  You would think there would be no more grumbling about hand washing or shoe removal at the Roper house, but unfortunately being a scientist does not make a person hygiene- conscious.  We’re still working on that one!