Week 4: Observation

This past week in microbiology lab, we cultured different plates with certain bacteria. One method that we learned was the isolation streaking. The purpose of isolation streaking is to create isolated colonies of bacteria.

In the isolation streaking, the bacteria is collected by using a sterile inoculating loop. Once collected, the streaking occurs in four quadrants. The first quadrant contains the first contact of the inoculating loop. After the streak was made, the inoculating loop is then heated by the incinerator. After the loop in sterile again, the second quadrant is filled with the similar streak patter as the first. Instead of collecting the bacteria again from the original source, the bacteria is collected from the first quadrant by dragging the inoculating loop from the first quadrant. The same process is repeated for the third quadrant and bacteria is dragged from the second to third quadrant and the fourth quadrant has bacteria from the third quadrant's streak.