Are Handbags Vectors of Disease? Science Project (May-2010)
We wanted to see what type of bacteria grow on handbags, and to make people aware of not placing their handbags on surfaces that have a lot of bacteria e.g. floors in public toilets.
We borrowed handbags from the teachers to test. We got handbags made from cloth, leather and plastic, to see if the material made any difference to the bacteria count.
We took samples from the handbags - we could tell the type of bacteria by the colour of the test kit.
We carried out cell counts on the handbags - the colour of this test is black.
We also carried out a test for enterobacteria- this shows on the pink surface of the test.
Some of the test kits had to be placed in the incubator at a temperature of 37o C.
