Hand Washing Effectiveness Lab Report

Purpose / Objective(s):

1. To measure and determine hand washing efficacy of various regimens against forms of common microscopic organisms.

Hypotheses:

1. The regimen of hand washing, soap scrub with > 10 sec of rigorous hand rubbing followed with paper towel drying is the most efficacious method among the chosen hand washing regimen.

2. The regimen of Purell with active antibacterial ingredient and a course paper towel is also efficacious.

3. The regimen of paper towel soaked with Betadine, scrubbed and followed with an alcohol wash down then air dried is the least efficacious of the three regimens.

4. The lips that came in contact with the left sleeve of a sweat shirt had contact with the lab countertop, and the building’s hand rails will show some growth of

Determined three sites / conditions for sampling

• Pointer finger / back of an iphone covered

• Middle finger / front pocket of a backpack

• Ring finger / left Crocs sandal

2. Prepared samples

3. Placed samples on the periphery of standard agar culture plates – see Figure # 1

4. Prepared a similar sample from self-kiss

Hand Washing Efficacy

1. Determined/chose/selected three hand washing regimen(s) – see Table # 1

2. Washed each finger with the given regimen

3. Placed the washed samples on the corresponding quadrant of the agar plate near the center

4. Allowed the cultures to incubate at body 37 degrees C temperature for 7 days

5. Observations were made of each culture with the use of a dissection microscope to characterize the microorganism/colonies present in the agar plate.

Kiss

Nothing

Culture of the kiss was allowed the same growth conditions and observation

Instrumentation and materials

1. AO Dissection Microscope

2. Agar culture plate

Experimental Design and Results

See Table 1 and Table 2 and Figure 1 for detailed experimental design and