Microbiology Science Fair Project, Advice Appreciated - Any and all help is appreciated. (Jan/09/2007 )

Should I do that this week? It's semester finals week and I want to leave experimenting alone for this week. Should I let the bacteria grow on its own anyway? Btw, BIG QUESTION: When I let the bacteria grow, how many plates out of 40 should coat bacteria on? What should I do with the remaining plates? Should I administer antibiotics straightaway? If so, since I need to see if antibiotic resistance is created, should I leave a few empty plates to retry growing the bacteria? Btw, how should I administer the antibiotics? Pour it on the whole culture before I allow it to grow while I leave a few controls to justify growth actually occurs, or use antibiotic paper disks? If I use the disks, how would I know antibiotic resistance occurs? And if so, how should I know the entire plate contains antibiotic-resistant bacteria as opposed to normal bacteria? Should I just take a sample out of the antibiotic ring kill zone and attempt to regrow it? How would I know if a certain dilution of antibiotic is effective or not if I use antibiotic disks? The bacteria will still be killed in the same radii due to equal diffusion of the antibiotic. How would I know what concentration is good? Would I just conclude that all bacteria dies after a certain threshold?

Please carefully answer my questions, thanks.

Have you seen the answers in your mail???

sorry. haven't checked yet. thanks for the reminder.

So. I'm going to create new controls tomorrow and then introduce cefalexin the day after if bacteria growth occurs.