The Amazing Beach Experiment

My day in class was very interesting and educational at the same time. This morning I got a caramel Frappuccino and was on my way to class. I actually ran into Dani and Kaitlyn while going into our building. For class we had an hour lecture and then we were on our way to get samples from Lake Michigan. It wasn’t a very long walk but I think we took the long way there because the way it was described was that it’s close to the dorms. At the beach we took samples of the water so that we could extract the bacteria out of the water. But first the lecture talked about the biology of viruses and the characteristics they have. I learned that they are non-cellular, they have particles called virons, and sometimes classified as non-living. Viruses have no genes for respiration and protein synthesis. Viruses must infect host cell to replicate/ make copies. I also learned that viral proteins carry the information for the synthesis of a number of viral proteins. So back to the beach, we all walked into the water and got our water samples from the lake using 50 mL tubes. Our professor let us stay at the beach for the rest of the time remaining before lunch. I chose to go back to the dorms and eat while everyone else ate at The Med restaurant. At lunch I bought some subway and then walked back to my class building where I waited for everyone to get back because I was the only one at class on time. Class didn’t start until 1:30 because everyone else was coming from The Med restaurant.

In the lab today, as I said before, we extracted the bacteria from the samples by using a funnel apparatus and a filter pad took all of the bacteria out of the water. Then we put m-ColiBlue24 into a plate before we put the filter pad on top of the plate with m-ColiBlue24. After, we got bacteria from anywhere by choice and put it on a TSA plate and waited. My partner Sophia and I chose to get bacteria from someone’s table they were currently using, a bathroom doorknob, and a dead fish. We used saline to mix all of the bacteria before putting it on the TSA plate. The purpose of this lab was to identify coliform in the water.

After class Jimmy and I met Alexa at the gym to work out at 4:45 PM. We split off into different places. I went the basketball gym to play against some people there, Jimmy went to go lift weights, and Alexa did some running and biking. At the basketball gym I meet new people every time. Today I met Noah, Sani, and Veroon. They actually are taking college courses as well but unfortunately Sani is leaving so I didn’t get to hang out with him while he was here. After playing a basketball game with them I went to the weight room to lift weights with Jimmy again. Luckily we finished in time to get dinner. We later saw Oyin, Dani, and Alexa. For dinner I had fruit and a beef quesadilla. Later we departed for a short time so that we could hang out in the west lounge to watch some movies and eat pizza around 10 PM. Then we all had gone to Alexa’s room to finish up some work and then go to bed in our rooms.