These last couple of days has been less chaotic than the same ones of last week. Ryan and I have had chance to calm down from the week before. I know I needed the weekend to collect my thoughts. Everyone was so intense and came at once. All that we have been doing in the office is just some general preparation for the many workshops that are/will be required soon. And to be fair, they are quickly taking form.
My particular favourite workshop that I've been working on so far involves a construction tool known as Fischer Technik. They are a tool similar to Lego and are really simple to build with. Once all the pieces have been found for both kits, it'll been a little tricky to construct them. Nothing that can't be fixed with thinking through and actually looking at the correct instruction. But, I am glad that Ryan is there to be honest. He's much more skilled at the 3D assembling than I am - Thank you for putting up with me Ryan.
They are some other workshops that we are also preparing; involving things such as coding and other educational tools such as Zome Tools. All which I can't wait to do in schools and see how they unfold to real groups.
Beside this preparation, there has been within a staining workshop in our (University of Wolverhampton's) training laboratories that Ryan and I have been involved in. This workshop was set up just for young people who are going to leaving care. We were showing them another path to consider instead of just going straight into work. It was a different style of workshop that I was familiar with doing. Must of this discomfort was from the audience. As these young people are from care homes, we had to be very sensitive about what we said. Normal familiar connections which are said without much thought such as parents, siblings and extended members of family must not be mentioned because we didn't know these young peoples past. But to be honest, I stood back and watched my supervisor, my lecturers from my university days take the activity. It was interesting watching them take the workshop. I take note of their tone, discussions and words. After that one though, I reckon I could take another and have a large part.
In the workshop, there were two practicals. These were;
The Staining of Human Cells
These human cells used for the staining process were actually from the person doing the practical. It was the idea that they were looking at own cheek cells which they had to collect themselves by sterile swab. These cheek cells are known as the scientific term squamous epithelial cells. We explained to the group what Squamous epithelial cell do. Which is providing a protective layer to anything they line. In context, this site in question is the mouth. So these cells will protect the mouth.
They had to rub the swab, which had their own cheek cells, across a clean glass side. Afterwards, a drop of methanol was needed on the glass slide. This drop of methanol would fix the cell on the slide - stopping them from dying. But, 30 seconds wait would be needed for this to happen. So the young people had to wait 30 seconds before using the blotting paper to remove the excess methanol.
The next thing was to drop Eosin on to the same area where the methanol went. Eosin is a common counterstain for microbiologist doing stains. It would stain the cell's parts that are acidophilic (Liked acidic substances) orange. Then after another 30 seconds, methylene blue should be placed onto the same area. Methylene blue is used to stain the nuclei of the cell. It makes the nuclei darker so you can see it better though the microscope.
When the staining process was done, the young people were able to see the cells under the microscopes.
It was cool seeing the expressions after their looked down the microscopes. Some were impressed that they could see their own cells. Though they suddenly wanted to clean their teeth when we told them that other/different looking cell that they saw was bacteria! We did reassure them that it was good friendly bacteria. But, it was funny none the less.
The Staining of Bacterial Cells
This time, the cells that they were using where on an agar plate. We had grown up several colonies of Staph. aureus and E. Coli for the young people to use on this practical. They had to carefully place some of bacteria onto the another clean glass slide and stain them with the Gram stain technique. The Gram stain is what microbiologists use to categorise bacteria. The principle is down to the outer membrane around the bacterium, where the bacterium has a specific carbohydrate in it's membrane. The specific carbohydrate is called peptidoglycan and cells know as gram positive have .
If it does then the crystal violet stain won't be washed off when ethanol is rinsed across the slide. Which consequently means that the cell will turn purple when the next stain, Safranin, is placed on. All this means that the cell is known as Gram positive.
However, if the ethanol does wash the crystal violet stain away. Then the Safranin stain will be by itself and the cell will seem pink. This cell will then be known as Gram Negative.
This staining procedure, however simple, is one of the common procedures done in the NHS labs. It's one of the most important staining procedure in microbiology because of the use of differentiate bacteria. By this differentiation, the treatment can by found.
This workshop was fun to be in. I hope that another one like this will be available to do soon as I do think that I can improve on my efforts here.
My particular favourite workshop that I've been working on so far involves a construction tool known as Fischer Technik. They are a tool similar to Lego and are really simple to build with. Once all the pieces have been found for both kits, it'll been a little tricky to construct them. Nothing that can't be fixed with thinking through and actually looking at the correct instruction. But, I am glad that Ryan is there to be honest. He's much more skilled at the 3D assembling than I am - Thank you for putting up with me Ryan.
They are some other workshops that we are also preparing; involving things such as coding and other educational tools such as Zome Tools. All which I can't wait to do in schools and see how they unfold to real groups.
Beside this preparation, there has been within a staining workshop in our (University of Wolverhampton's) training laboratories that Ryan and I have been involved in. This workshop was set up just for young people who are going to leaving care. We were showing them another path to consider instead of just going straight into work. It was a different style of workshop that I was familiar with doing. Must of this discomfort was from the audience. As these young people are from care homes, we had to be very sensitive about what we said. Normal familiar connections which are said without much thought such as parents, siblings and extended members of family must not be mentioned because we didn't know these young peoples past. But to be honest, I stood back and watched my supervisor, my lecturers from my university days take the activity. It was interesting watching them take the workshop. I take note of their tone, discussions and words. After that one though, I reckon I could take another and have a large part.
In the workshop, there were two practicals. These were;
- The staining of human cells
- The staining of bacterial cells.
The Staining of Human Cells
These human cells used for the staining process were actually from the person doing the practical. It was the idea that they were looking at own cheek cells which they had to collect themselves by sterile swab. These cheek cells are known as the scientific term squamous epithelial cells. We explained to the group what Squamous epithelial cell do. Which is providing a protective layer to anything they line. In context, this site in question is the mouth. So these cells will protect the mouth.
They had to rub the swab, which had their own cheek cells, across a clean glass side. Afterwards, a drop of methanol was needed on the glass slide. This drop of methanol would fix the cell on the slide - stopping them from dying. But, 30 seconds wait would be needed for this to happen. So the young people had to wait 30 seconds before using the blotting paper to remove the excess methanol.
The next thing was to drop Eosin on to the same area where the methanol went. Eosin is a common counterstain for microbiologist doing stains. It would stain the cell's parts that are acidophilic (Liked acidic substances) orange. Then after another 30 seconds, methylene blue should be placed onto the same area. Methylene blue is used to stain the nuclei of the cell. It makes the nuclei darker so you can see it better though the microscope.
When the staining process was done, the young people were able to see the cells under the microscopes.
It was cool seeing the expressions after their looked down the microscopes. Some were impressed that they could see their own cells. Though they suddenly wanted to clean their teeth when we told them that other/different looking cell that they saw was bacteria! We did reassure them that it was good friendly bacteria. But, it was funny none the less.
The Staining of Bacterial Cells
This time, the cells that they were using where on an agar plate. We had grown up several colonies of Staph. aureus and E. Coli for the young people to use on this practical. They had to carefully place some of bacteria onto the another clean glass slide and stain them with the Gram stain technique. The Gram stain is what microbiologists use to categorise bacteria. The principle is down to the outer membrane around the bacterium, where the bacterium has a specific carbohydrate in it's membrane. The specific carbohydrate is called peptidoglycan and cells know as gram positive have .
If it does then the crystal violet stain won't be washed off when ethanol is rinsed across the slide. Which consequently means that the cell will turn purple when the next stain, Safranin, is placed on. All this means that the cell is known as Gram positive.
However, if the ethanol does wash the crystal violet stain away. Then the Safranin stain will be by itself and the cell will seem pink. This cell will then be known as Gram Negative.
This staining procedure, however simple, is one of the common procedures done in the NHS labs. It's one of the most important staining procedure in microbiology because of the use of differentiate bacteria. By this differentiation, the treatment can by found.
This workshop was fun to be in. I hope that another one like this will be available to do soon as I do think that I can improve on my efforts here.
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