Pepper
Pepper has been found to stop the growth of bacteria,fungi and mold. It has been used to treat astma,diahooria,indigestion,fever and obestiy and many more. Black pepper is known to stops intestal gas. It pepper has acids that can burn the growth of fungi and bacteria because pepper contains a burning acid. Pepper also is a natural blood thinner.
Prediction
We thought that the pepper, chili and control 2 (which contained ethanol) would have a clear area around it in the bacteria lawn because we believed from the research we did and the things we learn in class that all these three have antibacterial properties. However control 1 will have bacteria growing around it since it doesn’t have anything to protect it from bacteria.
Apparatus
- Petri Dish
- Filter Paper Disks
- Forceps
- Plant Extracts
- Marker Pen
- Agar
Method
Leave it in a warm place- it should be around 20- 25o C for 2-3 days. Look at your dish but do no open it!!
Results
From this graph we can conclude that our prediction was correct because control 1, chili and pepper all had a clear area around it.
Our results show that both the plant extracts we tested have anti-bacterial properties which where the same as or higher than control 2.
Pepper was most effective at stopping bacterial growth because both groups discovered that it left the widest clear area out of all of them- group 1’s pepper extract left an 8mm clear area and group 2’s left a 16mm clear area.
Other groups in our class did not get the same results. This might have been because the added less or more of the extracts or because they petri dish was in a different temperature to ours or maybe their measurements weren’t right etc.
We could improve the method for this experiment to make the results more similar by making sure that we all take the same amount of plant extract- perhaps we could measure this and by placing it in the same temperature etc.
