Herbal Medicines

In this open-ended multicultural lab activity, learners investigate the effectiveness of herbal remedies. Learners prepare extracts from plants that are used in a variety of herbal medicines; they test the antibiotic effects of the herbs on gram positive and gram negative bacteria, and look for antifungal effects using common molds. The effectiveness of the herbal extracts is compared with traditional antibiotic and antifungal preparations. Each group is in charge of their experimental design; variables include types of herbs chosen, methods of preparing extracts, microbes tested, and type of exposure of microorganisms to the extract (applied to agar surface, on sensitivity disks, in agar itself, heated, cooled, etc.). Adult supervision recommended.