Yucky-cillin and 3 mouldy experiments

The past few weeks had been a rather slow period in our homeschool, primarily because Tiger was ill with a very severe viral infection, which saw him taking three different dosages of penicillin just to keep himself going in the day.

This was the first time Tiger has taken penicillin in such huge dosages.  He called it 'yucky-cillin'.  I don't blame him.  The medicine had such awful taste that I thought Tiger did really well to swallow it.

Even though he was lethargic most of the time, he was still keen to do science experiments, so I looked through Biology for Every Kid for Zoology experiments (so as not to deviate too far from our current science topic - organisms).  Lo and behold!  The first few experiments in the Zoology section are about moulds, which were very relevant to Tiger's experience with penicillin.  He was not too pleased to learn that penicillin is actually a type of mould. 

Experiment 1: To grow bread mould

Materials we used

Adding drops of water to the bread

Day 0 - damp bread sealed in ziplock bag

Day 1 - no observable change

Day 2 - still no observable change

Day 3 - moulds are becoming visible

Day 4 - obvious moulds!

Experiment 2: Effect of yeast on sugar solution

Materials for this experiment

Making yeast + sugar solution

Day 0

Day 0 - 2 hours later

Day 1 - balloon was smaller than Day 0 but not totally flat

Day 2 - balloon was the same size as Day 1

Experiment 3: Effect of preservatives on bacterial growth

Materials for experiment 3

Day 0

Day 1 - no obvious changes

Day 2 - 'control' was most cloudy (indicates mould growth)

Day 3 - clear vs cloudy becomes more obvious

Day 4 - 'control' (in the middle) is the cloudiest

Day 4 - birds' eye view.  Mould is seen in the middle 'control' glass.

This post is linked up to several blog hops, where you can visit to see what other homeschoolers have been busy with.  It is also linked to the December edition of Hands-on Homeschooling Blog Carnival.