First week as s-stem intern!

So it begins I started my very first internship this week with the Bioscience Department at Phoenix College. Once I found out, I was accepted into the program I was excited. My first day was on Wednesday (10/23/13) and I begin by watching the safe videos. The videos were very long but full of information. I did not get to do anything else on my first day besides watching the safe videos. However, today Thursday (10-24-13), I did my first experiment. I first had to look up information on isolation streak, lawn streak, and gram staining. Once I understood what isolation streak, lawn streak, and gram staining I got my first chance to try isolation streaking. With the help of Josh, I did my first isolation streak on a petri dish using an unknown sample (unknown # 2). After I did my first attempt, Josh gave me some pointers on how to isolation streak properly. For example when I first attempted to isolation streak I totally took off the lid and placed it on the counter. Josh corrected me to keep the lid on so I wound not contaminate the sample. On my second attempted on isolation streaking I followed Josh’s advice and left the lid on while I zig zagged the loop across the second petri dish. Below are two pictures of my attempts on isolation streaking. After I was done with my second attempted I incubated my two samples. Tomorrow (10-25-13) I get to work on figuring out what the unknown sample is. I have to say that my first two days as an intern have been great. I got to try something new and meet some new friends.

The bottom petri dish is my first attempted and the top petri dish is my second attempted.

A side view on the experiment I did on 10-24-13.