The student's observations should also help them to be able to visualize communication on a simple cell to cell level. The students should become aware of the environmental and evolutionary implications of this communication. There are many similarities to intercellular communications in multicellular eukaryotic organisms. The extensions can culminate in investigating the genetic level of this communication by genetic manipulation of the organism. If you have the necessary equipment and expertise, restriction analysis and genetic transformation can be a logical extension activity.
Additional time is needed for observation and discussion.
These higher level labs take substantially longer and you need some experience in determining suitable stopping points for your lab schedule. The first activity should be to do two streak plates. One to isolate individual colonies by standard three or four overlapping streaks with sterilization between each streak. The second should be done with sterile cotton swabs, allowing the students to draw names, initials, smiles or any nonobjectionable design on the plate with the culture. The glowing results the next day will have them hooked for the follow-up discussions.