Are you washing your hands long enough to protect yourself from illness causing germs? Does handwashing even make a difference? Sixth grade students tackled this question in science class and here are their findings, as reported by Abbi B.
There are four types of germs: these are bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites. When germs get in your body, they can snuggle in for a long stay and can cause you to get sick. It is believed the best way to prevent sickness is to wash your hands.
In science class we did an experiment to determine how effective handwashing is by applying a special lotion on our hands to represent germs. We used a black light to see how many “germs” were on our hands before handwashing. We then washed our hands for 30 seconds. We again used the black light to measure the germ removing effects. Although we found a decrease, germs remained. After discussion with Mrs Mrozinski, we washed our hands again, this time for 40 seconds, and applying a harder scrub. Again we observed our hands under black light and found no germs.
In conclusion, we determined a good hand washing can remove sickness-causing germs. Washing your hands is a good step to take to stay healthy.