Back to school: wash your hands experiment with bread

Geneva

Clean hands are the best protective weapon against most microbes. With this bread-experiment your kids will understand why! It takes 10 minutes to prepare but 5-7 days to get the best results. In case you don’t want to wait, we prepared a video showing how it all goes.

Soon, shops will open, restaurants will too, and kids will go back to school. Now, more then before the strict hygiene rules will be important.

We had a lot of time to teach kids good habits: cough in your elbow, wash your hands, keep distance when outside etc. But do they really understand why? I’m sure that kids learn better if they know why and what for.

So, here’s a simple yet eye opening experiment you can do with kids now – a week before the school starts. It takes 10 minutes to set up and 5-7 days of observations.

Attention: risk of puking at the end of the experiment.

THINGS YOU’LL NEED:

  1. Sliced loaf of bread (eg. toast bread),
  2. Tweezers (not obligatory),
  3. 5 plastic ziplock bags,
  4. Soap,
  5. Disinfectant,
  6. Laptop/smartphone.

BAG 1

Very carefully, best using tweezers, take the first slice of bread and put it in the bag. The best result will be if you don’t touch it at all. On the bag write: “control”.
Done.

BAG 2

Find a pair of dirty hands (not washed with soap/disinfectant for a few hours). Give those hands a new slice of bread And ask to rub it for 30 secs. Into the bag. Mark “dirty hands”. Done.

Bag 3

Another slice of bread another task – wipe the laptop keyboard or a smartphone with it (for around 30 sec). To the bag. Mark it “laptop” or “phone”. Done.

BAG 4

Ask a pair of hands to have a wash with soap – but not a pandemic detailed wash, just a quick-in-a-hurry-old-school splash. Dry them thoroughly. These hands will rub a new slice of bread for 30 sec. Slice to the bag, and remember to mark it, eg “soap”. Done.

BAG 5

Now, with the same or different set of hands – wash them with a disinfectant and ask to rub a new slice of bread for 30 sec. To the bag, mark “disinfectant “. Done.

You can add more slices and more places to check: a toilet seat, floor by the entry, floor in the bedroom, door handles, elevator button etc.

You are now entering the observation phase of this experiment. For this purpose place the bags in one place. We used tape to hang the on the wall. Every morning check the state of slices, note down which slice grows mold first, then continue.
On day 5 you will see horrible things, yucky things, unimaginable disgust. Explain to kids that mold represents the microbes on each surface the bread touched. Compare the “dirty hands” with “soap” and “disinfectant”.

Just make sure that children understand that the amount of mold represents the amount of dirt and microbes each slice touched. It’s really disgusting, awful, and convincing.


I’m wishing you all a stressless, and healthy last week of quarantine and a safe come back to a more normal life!