How to grow foot odor in a jar? (Kids' experiment)?

Question

I am helping my cousin in middle school with his science fair project on testing natural anti-foot-odor products... there was a website with kids' experiments that told you how to grow foot odor in a jar, but when we click in the link it does not work, and I can't find the experiment anywhere.

Has anyone ever heard of this experiment with growing foot odor in jars? We need to use jars as opposed to actual feet so the results of each product can be compared...

Weird project, I know, but that's what he wants to do ::rolls eyes::

Answer 1

I don't know if this would work but its an Idea. You would need stinky feet and cotton balls. Wipe the cotton balls on the feet put them in jars and then do the experiment.

Answer 2

Touching on the idea of the guy above me: You could get something called Nutrient Agar; It's a gel used to grow bacteria on. Then take a sterile cotton swab and swab a sweaty, smelly foot and rub it on the agar.

You would then need to incubate this sample to allow growth. In a lab you would use an incubation machine, but I suppose you could just put it in a air tight jar and put it under a heat lamp.

The bacteria that cause odor on the foot (corynebacteria) are facultative anerobes. What this means is that they can switch back and forth from using oxygen and not using oxygen to survive, so putting them in an air tight container will not hurt your sample.

EXTRA: if you like, and have the resources, you could perform what is known as a gram stain to test to ensure you have gram-negative bacteria. ***After performing this procedure your sample should show red under the microscope.

Link for gram stain steps: http://www.microbiol.org/white.papers/WP...