Port St. Lucie campus students Nakia Green and Cheyenne Sneider recently analyzed water samples from Moores Creek located in Fort Pierce, Florida, thanks to a lesson from professor William Persons.

In an effort to research contamination sources, the Biomedical Science students obtained the samples from 14 locations before returning to campus to filter them and to collect their bacteria. After transferring each disc to Petri plates, they used highly selective media designed to culture a specific type of bacteria called Enterococci, which indicates contamination from fecal waste. They are now monitoring each colony of bacteria, repeating the sampling process approximately once a week to further analyze the contamination. With the goal of better understanding the sources and patterns of pollution along the stream in order to mitigate further contamination, they will further collect and read the DNA in order to identify specific strains.