<p> Genetically Modified Fruits and Veggies Lab</p><p>Problem: Do organic foods or genetically modified foods contain more types of bacteria?</p><p>Background: Genetically modified fruits and vegetables have been on the market for over a decade. These are foods that have been modified to give them better traits. Some of these traits include pesticide resistance, herbicide resistance, longer shelf life, unique colors and features or the just plain goofy such as a tomato that smells like a lemon (conveniently called the lemato)! On the flip side there is a group of people who do not want genetically modified fruits and vegetables to be sold, and they refuse to eat these GM foods. These people tend to buy foods known as 100% organic. 100% organic foods are grown completely natural and do not contain modifications. People in favor of organic foods say that they taste better and our as they should be grown and eaten. </p><p>One other problem with GM foods is that some people believe that they contain bacteria, fungus and other unnatural microbes that hurt people when they eat them. Your job today is to discover if there are more microbes on GM foods, or organic foods.</p><p>Directions: You will need to create 8 agar plates. Agar is a material that contains nutrients to help bacteria and other microbes grow. On each case you will label as the following:* (other foods may be used as a supplement to these, they are the first that I thought of) Plate 1-Apple organic Plate 2-Apple modified Plate 3-Corn organic Plate 4-Corn modified Plate 5-Strawberry organic Plate 6-Strawberry modified Plate 7-Tomato organic Plate 8-Tomato modified</p><p>Your teacher has placed the fruits and vegetables out using gloves so as not to contaminate the fruits and vegetables of microbes on their hands. You will be swabbing the outside and inside of each fruit and vegetable, to do this you will need 16 cotton swabs. On the tops of your agar plates draw a line down the middle, label one side outside of organism and another, inside of organism. Swab each portion of the fruit or vegetable and rub the swab on the agar plate. When you are finished with the swab you may throw it out. Repeat this step with each of your fruits and veggies. When you are complete place the top on the plate and put it into the bacteria growth area. It will take a few days to see if any bacteria forms. </p><p>To be completed at a later date: Hopefully your bacteria has formed! Retrieve your agar plates and DO NOT OPEN THEM!!!!! Looking through the top of the plate try to identify as many different spores as you can on each portion of each plate. Count each different type of bacteria and mark in the data table. When you are finished, put back into the growth area so your teacher can dispose of properly. Answer the following questions: DATA TABLE</p><p>Type of Fruit/Veggie Number of groups of bacteria Outside Organic Apple Inside Organic Apple Outside Modified Apple Inside Modified Apple Outside (husk) Organic Corn Inside (kernel) Organic Corn Outside (husk) Modified Corn Inside (kernel) Modified Corn Outside Organic Strawberry Inside Organic Strawberry Outside Modified Strawberry Inside Modified Strawberry Outside Organic Tomato Inside Organic Tomato Outside Modified Tomato Inside Modified Tomato</p><p>Make a bar graph to compare the following data. Make sure you plot your axis points right and use color codes for each different fruit. You may wish to do this on Excel.</p><p>Post Lab Questions:</p><p>1. Which organism contained the most microbes overall?</p><p>2. Which organism contained the most groups of microbes?</p><p>3. Overall which contained more microbes, the modified or the organic?</p><p>4. Overall did the outsides or insides of the organism contain more microbes?</p><p>Discussion Questions: 1. Do you think that this is a valid experiment when studying the differences between organic and modified foods? Why are why not? 2. What are some errors that could have caused this experiment to go wrong?</p><p>3. Some people make the claim the GM foods are “freak foods” and that they contain more bacteria on a normal basis, than organic foods. Based on your results, is this a legitimate claim?</p><p>4. Currently there are many countries that import and export fruits and vegetables for consumption. Do you feel that the food being shipped and touched by multiple people is more dangerous than the DNA that is inside it? Why or why not?</p>