2. The Bacteria Family’s Big Bash! By Jessica Davis, Molly Sober, and Anne Thurber

3. Once upon a time there was a small plot of land where many plants and animals lived.

4. Also on the plot of land, or rather, inside of it, lived the bouncy Bacteria family. Bertha Bert Baby Blair Bobby

5. The family lived in a home around the many grass roots. Not only did the bacteria help to protect the grass roots, they also fixed the nitrogen in the soil so that the plants could use it. In return for their protection and food, the roots gave the Bacteria family a place to live safely.

6. At least, this is what they had always thought. One day, the youngest of the Bacteria family, Baby Bacteria, began wailing for no reason at all.

7. It wasn’t evident why Baby Bacteria (who was really psychic) was crying until Blair Bacteria ventured up to the surface of the soil.

8. “I saw horrible things!” She wailed to the rest of her family. “There were huge yellow monsters everywhere, and these strange animals were carrying heavy stones, and digging up our homes!” “That’s awful!” Bertha Bacteria cried. “I hope everyone is okay.”

9. Sure enough, the next couple of months, many bacteria and fungi disappeared under the stones the animals were placing everywhere.

10. Even more microbes had managed to escape because of the mass amounts of water the beasts were pouring over the now bare soil. Now all the microbes were crowded around the Bacteria family’s home, trying to share the few roots the evil creatures had spared from their destruction. Many of the bacteria felt a lot safer after the giant beasts were gone, and they could finally live without the fear of the yellow monsters.

11. But it did not take long for the bacteria to realize they could not escape danger so easily. In their disruption of the land, the animals had built a very strange structure very closely to the Bacteria family’s home...

12. Bert Bacteria so eloquently named the object the “black hole”, as the inside of it seemed to disappear into infinity.

13. The strange thing about the hole was it had the peculiar habit of spitting out large amounts of water, especially when it was raining. Often bacteria, minerals, fungi, and nutrients were swept away. Without the many beneficial microbes the grass wasn’t growing as well, and there were less and less roots for the bacteria to live on.

14. “We can’t keep living like this.” Bobby bacteria commented while clinging to the root during a thunderstorm. “We need to do something about this!” But what could the bacteria do? During a very bad surge of water, Baby Bacteria was swept away with many other bacteria, fungi, and even Bobby’s three best friends Michael Mineral, Phoebe Phosphorous, and Peter Potassium.

16. “We have to go save her!” Blair Bacteria cried. But Bert Bacteria’s only respond was “How?”

17. One day, some of the animals came by the Bacteria family’s home and said they could help. “We can’t save Baby Bacteria.” Juanita, added. “She’s most likely floating somewhere inside the stream by now.” Said Magdalena. M J A

18. “But we can learn how to save bacteria.” Anita said happily. “We would just like to take a bit of your soil.” Said Juanita. The Bacteria family agreed and the microbes were transported by the animals into plastic bags.

19. “First we need to choose a few bacteria.” Anita said while filling some beakers with distilled water. The bacteria allowed Magdalena to place one cubic centimeter of their soil into the water. “Each time I pick up some of the muddy water, I get less and less bacteria.” Anita explained. “This way, we can estimate how many bacteria were in the soil.” Juanita smiled as she diluted the muddy water four times.

20. “This is called serial dilution.”

25. “And with a drop of the diluted soil on this Petri film®, we can count the colonies of bacteria.” Magdalena placed a drop on the Petri film® and put it aside. “Now we wait…” Petri Film ®

26. Two days later the girls returned. “Are you ready?” Juanita asked the bacteria. There were now little red dots of bacteria colonies all over the films. “By using a special equation, we can now figure out how much bacteria was in the original soil sample!” Anita said happily. Petri Film ®

27. After the girls had calculated their results, they turned to the bacteria and beamed at their conclusion. “Just take a look at these beautiful graphs.”

28. Graphs

33. Conclusion

34. Hypothesis: Closer to the runoff location and closer to the soil surface, bacterial density will be lower than the bacterial density of soil samples taken at greater depths and distances from the point of origin of runoff location. Runoff has a negative affect on bacteria. Our results proved our hypothesis wrong. According to our data, there were less bacteria 100 cm (our greatest distance away) from the drainpipe 30 cm deep into the soil. There were two sources of error in our experiment. First, the surface we tested was on a slope, therefore the runoff process was most likely accelerated or altered. Second, we did not know the depth the drainpipe released the water.

35. Future Research Questions Research Fungi reaction to runoff –Can withstand more acidic soil and harsher conditions Research different runoff chemicals effect on bacteria Research alternative runoff techniques that would be less detrimental to bacteria and other microbes

36. “Thank you so much!” The Bacteria family shouted in unison. “You have made Baby Bacteria proud.” And so they had.

37. The End