Linked to our work about Florence Nightingale, we looked at the effect germs can have on our bodies and how quickly they can make food mouldy.
We turned into Super Scientists and we had a go at testing our reflexes as well as our sense of smell and touch. It was difficult to guess what the smells and the objects were without using our eyes.
Then we set up an experiment to see how germs could make food mouldy. We used three pieces of bread but did different things to each one.
- In the first – we called this CONTROL as we didn’t touch the piece of bread with our hands. We used tongs and placed it into a clear bag.
- In the second – we called this UNWASHED as we made sure we put lots of germs on the piece of bread by rubbing it between our hands before we placed it into the clear bag.
- In the third – we called this WASHED as we made sure we washed our hands carefully with soap and water before we rubbed our hands on the piece of bread and placed it into the clear bag.
- All three bags were placed in the same place so that we could make sure it was a fair test.
We continued to be Super Scientists by making a prediction about which piece of bread would have the most mouldy. Our predictions are below:
- 2 children thought the CONTROL would have the most mould.
- 25 children thought the UNWASHED would have the most mould.
- 3 children thought the WASHED would have the most mould.
We left the bread for a week and our results are below:
- All three pieces of bread had gone mouldy.
- It was clear from looking at the pieces of bread that the UNWASHED had the most amount of mould on it, followed by the WASHED and finally the CONTROL.
As a class, we discussed why the UNWASHED had the most amount of mould on it. It had the most amount of germs on it and the control had none because it hadn’t been touched by anyone’s hands.
We know how important it is to wash our hands before we eat and after we have been to the toilet as we don’t want these germs inside our bodies.
If they can turn bread mouldy, what can they do to the inside of our bodies?