AboutRalph Salier-Hellendag Expertise Science Fair Judge for many years and experience with robotics, biology, chemistry, industrial processes, metalurgy and metal forming.
Experience Science Fair Judge for many years and have helped several students get to state level competition. Most recently 2 of my students received state level awards and one went on to the nationals in Washington DC.
Education/Credentials BA Archaeology - Anthropology
MA Business Anthropology
Expert: Ralph Salier-Hellendag Date: 7/2/2008 Subject: Encouraging my scientific daughter
Question My daughter, age 10, is going into the 5th grade and absolutely LOVES science. She won last year's fair and is jazzed already about starting up for next year. She wants to do something involving finding cures for diseases. How do I go about finding materials she can understand so that she can research this and come up with an experiment at her ability level? I have no idea where to begin because the topic is so complicated but at the same time don't even want to quench her love of learning. (She aspires to one day find the cure for cancer - and understands it won't be this year - lol).
Answer Hi Angie,
Very good! I love it when a mom or dad want to encourage their daughters in the sciences. My own daughter became a Marine Biologist and is a high school science teacher at a special science charter in the Houston TX area.
Well on to your question. There are various bacteria and molds which can be easily grown on media (in a petre dish). Most are relatively harmless to us. But it is a good start in learning how to grow a culture and then how to experiment on those cultures to learn what works and what does not. I am sure that as most people you occasionally get moldy bread, fruit or cheese in the fridge. This is a good material to start with. There are many kinds of growth media which are easy to prepare and obtain which are relatively inexpensive. Petre dishes are also easy to get and fairly inexpensive. The only other tool is an innoculation hoop. This is like a dental tool with a loop of metal at the end which is sterilized, diped into the "specimen" and then used to innoculate the dish with the media already in the dish. Then it is re-sterilized in a flame between each innoculation.
But these instructions are available in many biology tech books you can get at the library.
I would recommend that you speak to a high school science (Biology) teacher to get some instruction as a parent so that you can help out.
This is not difficult nor dangerous but does require some supervision. Also understanding the mold or bacteria you are working with is also important so get good culture from a supply house vs. from the fridge.
