What's in Your Ocean?

Overview

Objectives/Goals My goal for my project was to find out how polluted the local beaches were. Also, if the pollution or bacteria in the water is harmful to humans. Methods/Materials First, I gathered water from the twelve different beach locations. Next, I put the water samples in Petri dishes with sterile cotton swabs. Then I put them into a cabinet in my garage. I would then watch them, log how the bacteria changed, and take pictures. Finally, when I was done logging my data, I disposed the Petri dishes. I used 12 Petri dishes, 10 different ocean water samples, and 10 sterile plastic containers to collect my water samples. Results My results were as I expected. There was a large amount of bacteria in my ocean samples. After I had finished my 7 day logging, I took samples of the bacteria and put it under a microscope. What I saw in the bacteria from the Huntington Beach Pier- After Rain was disturbing, I saw Fecal Coliform. This kind of bacteria proves that if the bacteria levels get high enough the bacteria can cause serious illnesses. Conclusions/Discussion I concluded that our oceans from Huntington Beach Pier to Balboa Pier are very polluted and full of bacteria. Also, if we don#t do anything to reduce the bacteria amount in our oceans; they will become so polluted with bacteria that they will become untouchable. Finally, if everyone were to know about the conditions of our ocean water, I believe that more people would try and help to stop the continual growth of bacteria.

Competition history

• CSEF 2007 Microbiology · Entry J1435

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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