The Bioprospecting Freshwater Algae Microbiology Kit is designed to support the citizen-scientist experience.  It involves local exploration, algae sampling, sterile agar algae growth, algae characterization, and evaluation. This hands on kit includes all you need to gather and grow algae from your community.  It is well suited for classroom, research, experimental design, and inquiry-based applications where identifying, comparing, and selecting microalgae is the goal.

Kit contains:

• Microalgae incubator container with 5 volt LED mat
• Kit instructions sheet
  
• 20 60mm agar plates
  
• 500mL plastic bottle containing approximately 400mL of freshwater agar
  
• Bag 1:
  
  • 2mL sample tubes (x30)
    
  • Unique sticker IDs to label sample tubes (x45)
  • Baggie of freshwater salts to make 500mL of freshwater media (x1)
    
  • 2mL tube of F/2 nutrients (x1)
    
• Bag 2:
  
  • 2mL dense sample of Chlorella Vulgaris culture to use as control (x1)
    
  • 2mL tube of F/2 nutrients to add to agar after reheating (x1)
    
  • 1mL sterile plastic transfer pipettes (x5)
    
  • Individually wrapped toothpicks (x20)
    
  • 12” x 4” sheet of Parafilm to seal plates (x1)
    
• Bag 3:
  
  • 50mL centrifuge tubes to isolate and scale up algae cultures from agar plates (x5)
    
  • Individually wrapped toothpicks (x5)
    
  • Beaker bags (x5)
    
  • Secchi sticks (x5)
    
  • Baggie of freshwater salts to make 500mL of freshwater media (x6)
  • 2mL tube of F/2 nutrients (x6)