• Question: How do petri dishes work?

    Asked by naimasultana123 to Anna, Chris, Jane, Iain, Nick on 17 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Anna Middleton

      Anna Middleton answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Hi naimasultana123
      Petri dishes are really useful pieces of equipment for growing bugs in. For example you could grow the bacteria from under your finger nails in a Petri dish and see what’s there.

    • Photo: Iain Moal

      Iain Moal answered on 17 Mar 2014:

      Petri dishes are really very simple. They are just round dishes in which you can grow bacteria. The only thing is that you have to have a growth medium to grow them. This is usually agar jelly, in which different ingredients can be added, such as nutrient and sugars for the bacteria to feed off. Or, if you want to look to see whether your bacteria is resistant to an antibiotic, you can put that in the dish too, and see whether the bacteria can grow or not.

    • Photo: Jane Charlesworth

      Jane Charlesworth answered on 18 Mar 2014:

      I think Iain explained everything there-brilliant answer, especially the bit about antibiotics and testing for resistance. You can also test whether bacteria can make different nutrients, or which nutrients they grow best on by growing them on agar with different nutrients in.

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