Bacteria Science Kit Petri Dishes with Agar and Swabs | Top Science Fair Project Bacteria Growing Kit | Prepoured LB-Agar Plates and Cotton Swabs | STEM for Kids Aged 6 7 8 9 10 Girls Boys Gifts

I bought a testing kit for some experiments at home. The package arrived as described and the petri dishes were triple shrink wrapped, which was a nice touch. However, I encountered a problem when the agar started melting after only 18 hours of inoculation. I had placed the dishes upside down in a consistent 82° environment, but nothing could grow because after 36 hours, everything had melted.Updated: After 52 hours, I have some expected bacterial growth. A lot of the liquid was moisture buildup and NOT AGAR MELTING.I would recommend this kit!

I brought to elementary school science class to teach kids importance of keeping hands clean. We used for bacteria cultures. Agar worked so well, we were able to culture bacteria’s in their hands. Plastic pretties so light kids can easily handle. Kit insert has many other experiment ideas if you feel short on that. There were plenty of material in it to get culture around the class. All enjoyed and learned, mission accomplished!

They had moisture in the bag and the dishes were contaminated. Now I have to order more before my sons science fair

I got these for some classes on hand hygiene and cleaning. We cultured hands before and after handwashing as well as surfaces around the school. I created a makeshift incubator out of an old aquarium, aluminum foil, and an old incandescent 40 watt bulb, covered them with a towel so they were in the dark, and monitored the temperature with a digital thermometer to keep it between 89-98.6 degrees F. I let them grow out for 4.5 days and then we observed the results. I don't know that you have to incubate them, but I wanted to make sure I got good growth in a relatively short amount of time. My complaint is with the sterile cotton swabs. They are really short and small, which makes it hard to maintain sterile technique collecting samples and inocculating plates. We ended up buying a box of longer sterile swabs rather than using the tiny ones. I think you could get by with the short ones, but I used these with ages 7-12 with varying dexterity, so I wanted more margin for error.

Many homeschool science curriculums have kids make agar plates form scratch. Having make thousands of them in my university and work life, I don't think its a useful skill. Knowing HOW they are made manually is important, but I don't see value in making the actual plates. So, we read over the manual method and supplement with these plates. They are sterile and exactly what is needed. We were able to test lots of surfaces and discuss bacterial diversity and that "lots" of bacteria does not actually mean they are harmful.

I appreciate that I can purchase these with the agar, ready to use. Growing the bacteria wasn't as easy but the included booklet was informative and we ended up using all the 'plates' as our son needed multiple attempts for his project.

Came pretty much empty and if it wasn’t empty it was pure liquid!! Just threw the whole package as there was so much liquid all over!!

Used for science fair project all Petri dishes arrived in excellent condition.