• 1) After viewing the video and images the blood agar plates you inoculated, discuss which aspects of your streaking technique worked well and which aspects of your streaking technique need improvement. Consider: did you get cells onto the plates? Did you get isolated colonies of S. aureus on the plates? Be specific in describing what you will do differently during Exercise II when you streak for isolation again on your plate media.
• 2) Explain why it is proper technique to label plate media on the agar (bottom) side of the plate and to incubate and store plate media with the agar side up (lid side down).
• 3) What is the genetic relationship between the cells in a single bacterial colony? How is this related to the reason why we want to have isolated colonies on our plate media?
• 4) Which part of slide preparation takes the longest? Explain why it’s a good idea to make multiple slide smears of your samples as the first procedure in the laboratory period.
Sample Solution