If we test 3 different types of mouthwashes then we think that the Classic Mouthwash is going to clean the most bacteria because it has the most alcohol in it.

 

What is bacteria/oral bacteria?

Bacteria is an organism that lives on your body, in your mouth and in your digestive system and really everywhere on your body and around you. Oral bacteria is all the bacteria you will find your mouth. Some of these oral bacteria can cause cavities, gingivitis and bad breath. But they're not all bad. The bacteria that grows in your mouth are called Moraxella, Neisseria, Veillonella. Rods – Campylobacter, Capnocytophaga, Desulfobacter, Desulfovibrio, Eikenella, Fusobacterium, Haemophilus, Leptotrichia, Prevotella, Selemonas, Simonsiella, Treponema, Wolinella. Having lots of bacteria in your mouth can lead to a ton of cavities, bad breath, gum disease and tooth loss. To prevent these thing you can brush your teeth and use mouthwash to kill the bacterias.

What causes bacteria growth your mouth?

Poor dental hygiene: When we eat food, some of the food gets stuck in our teeth or other parts of the mouth. These particles later become the medium for bacterial growth. To prevent this from happening, it is suggested by dental professionals that people rinse their mouth after every meal with mouthwash.

Are they all bad bacteria?

Much of the bacteria in your mouth are actually good for you and are on your side, defending your teeth and gums, freshening your breath, and aiding in the digestive process. Bad bacteria convert sugar particles into acid. Not only does this give them the perfect environment to grow, but it also offsets the pH of your mouth and supports plaque buildup. Once plaque hardens, it becomes tartar, weakening your teeth and gums.

How can you get rid of oral bacteria?

Their are a ton of ways to kill/get rid of oral bacteria some of the most common ways are to brush your teeth, use mouthwash, floss your teeth and brush your tongue.

What is mouthwash and what is made of?

Mouthwash contains a lot of ingredients like Chlorhexidine, Chlorine dioxide, Cetylpyridinium chloride and essential oils. Chlorhexidine is a powerful antiseptic that is effective against a wide range of bacteria. Chlorine dioxide and Cetylpyridinium chloride are another antiseptic that is usually in over the counter mouthwashes and has antibacterial property that can help control plague. In some mouthwashes, they also have different types of essential oils like eucalyptus, tea tree oil, thymol and menthol. These oils have a natural antimicrobial properties that can help reduce bacteria growth in your mouth. Those ingredients are the ones that kill the bacteria and are the most common ingredients inside mouthwash. 

Does mouthwash destroy only the bad bacteria?

Like brushing and flossing our teeth, using a mouthwash can help bring down the level of destructive bacteria in your mouth. The benefit of killing “bad” bacteria — for example, bacteria that promote gum disease or tooth decay — far outweighs any potential risk of offsetting the level of “good” bacteria in your mouth. But in the end mouthwash kills both the good and bad bacteria in your mouth.

 

Which ingredient in the mouthwash helps destroying bacteria and why?    

All the ingredient inside mouthwash help kill a little bit of bacteria. But alcohol definitely helps the process of killing bacteria so I would recommend buying  some mouthwash with alcohol to clean your mouth better.

                                        

 

 

 

 

INDEPENDENT – (CHANGING)

1)TYPE OF MOUTH WASH ( with different % of alcohol)

 

DEPENDENT – (MEASURING )

1)Bacterial growth before and after the mouthwash and THEN how it quantitatively fair

against other mouthwashes with various alcohol %’s

 

CONTROLLED-

1) Amount of mouthwash used

2) Amount of time gargled

3) How we swabs our mouths

4) How we deposited the sample the petri dish(hashtag)

5) The incubation time of bacterial growth to time of counting colonies

 

 

PROCEDURE

 

In the am/morning we would first swab our dirty mouths before with a q tip 6 times in

various parts of our mouths and would deposit the bacteria on to the petri dish in a hashtag form.

We would then use 20 ml of the mouthwash and gargle for 1 minute, and then would repeat the

same swabbing technique on to the petri dish. This insured that we had a before and after results

we repeat this same trial with this specific mouthwash 3 times each to insure we had a large

amount of data and trials.

We repeated this procedure with each mouthwash.

We aloud 5 days worth of incubation time so the bacteria could grow we then took the

opportunity to count the bacterial colonies at this time.

This repeated experiment would result in data for 6 trails of Dirty mouth vs mouthwash mouth

for each type of mouthwash. This would ensure that we would have multiple opportunities to test

the efficacy of each type of mouthwash against a control ( dirty Mouth)

 

    

 

After completing our experiment, conducting multiple trials, and analyzing the data, we can affirm that our hypothesis stands correct: Scope Classic proves to be the most efficient mouthwash in destroying oral bacteria. Throughout the testing phase, Maya and I repeated the experiment three times for each mouthwash, amounting to a total of 18 trials. While five of the trials showed no bacterial growth, the remaining trials allowed us to deduce that Scope Classic significantly reduced bacteria, showcasing an average decrease from 18 before the use of mouthwash to an average of 1 after its use. This indicates the substantial impact of alcohol on bacterial elimination. While the other tested mouthwashes demonstrated some bacterial reduction, they were not as effective as Scope Classic.

 

This project is important because oral hygene is really important for your body/mouth. Aswell it's important to actually have a brand that can work and help kill bacteria in your mouth.

The largest source of error was the lack

 of growth on the agar both before and after mouthwash

use. This would likely tell us that there was a problem 

with the agar because research shows that

the human mouth always has a degree of bacterial 

in it. Below are a few error reasons that may be from the

 agar and we will also indicate other sources

of human error.

 

1) Improper Sterilization: If the agar medium

 or the Petri dishes were not properly sterilized

before use, any bacteria present in the 

environment could have contaminated the 

plates, stoping the growth of mouth bacteria.

 

2)Blocking by other Micro-organisms: 

Other micro-organisms in the mouth or 

on the surfaces used during the experiment may have

 outcompeted the mouth bacteria for nutrients or produced

substances that stopped growth.

 

3)Incompatibility with Agar -Some strains 

of mouth bacteria may require specific nutrients or

growth conditions that are not provided by the 

agar medium used in the experiment. In such

ways, the bacteria may fail to grow.

 

4) Agar brands -we used 3 different so there 

could have been different ingredients that could

have stopped the bacteria from growing and some

 that could have let the bacteria grow and that’s

how the classic mouthwash bacteria grew and 

the other mouthwash bacteria not grow.

 

https://www.ada.org/en/resources/research/science-and-research-institute/oral-health-topics/mouthrinse-mouthwash#:~:text=Antimicrobials%20in%20mouthrinse%20formulations%20include,ketone%2C%20terpene%2C%20and%20ionone.

 

https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-use-mouthwash#:~:text=Mouthwash%2C%20also%20called%20oral%20rinse,try%20to%20prevent%20tooth%20decay. 

 

https://www.anewdental.com/blog/how-much-do-you-know-about-your-mouthwash-these-five-facts-may-surprise-you/ 

 

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/24494-bacteria 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6503789/#:~:text=COMPOSITION%20OF%20THE%20ORAL%20MICROBIOME&text=Gram%20negative%3A,%2C%20Simonsiella%2C%20Treponema%2C%20Wolinella

Thank you Mme boussaha for helping us with the trifold/titles and helping us with the research 

Aswell we want to say thank you to our parents for buying the mouthwashes, petri dishes and writing stuff down

Mrs. Van Den Eyden for the giant trifold, helping us put stuff on the platform and with all of our CYSF stuff 

Thank you Mme MacIntyre for the advice and for teaching us about varibles ect.