Science people- will this 3 degree difference ruin my son's biology experiment?

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For Biology, my son is cultivating pond water bacteria.  It's not supposed to go below 60 degrees F.  

 

Unfortunatley, we really really don't have a good place for it inside our home - we have no garage, and every space downstairs is dedicated to either food or very near food prep, and then there's the living room which is laminate flooring.

 

So, I think we can keep the jars cultivating outside.  The night time low this time of year is about 56 degrees.  Will that four degrees really kill our bacteria? If so I guess we will have to bring them in 

 

PS- the daytime high here is about 90 degrees F...so the bacteria and the water will likely stay above 60 throughout the night, I think.

 

Thanks!

Edited September 19, 2016 by Calming Tea

[three4me]

I'm no expert! But I wonder if you can cover it up and insulate it in a box or with towels or something at night.

[Garga]

Styrofoam is a good insulator. Can you tape a bunch of styrofoam to the side of the jars?

 

Can the bacteria be in the bathtub at night with the bathroom door shut?

[Schadenfreude]

You could bring them in and put them in the tub for the night. We do a lot of bacteria experiments and the temperature change will kill some of your bacteria every time it dips.

[City Mouse]

Maybe try a heating pad under the samples at night?

[Clemsondana]

In general, bacteria don't die when they get to refridgerator temperatures - in research labs, petri plates are stored in the fridge between experiments. The bacteria will grow much more slowly if they get cool, though. In general, most 'normal' bacteria will grow fine between normal room temp and human body temp. If you get them hot enough you can kill them, and if you freeze them without using proper storage solutions they'll get holes poked in them from the ice crystals and a lot of them will die, but anything in between usually just affects the rate of growth. Depending on what you're doing, some strains could do better than others, but it shouldn't kill everything.

[Ausmumof3]

I'm not a science person but typically cold temps Slow the Growth rate rather than killing bacteria but that may depend on the type of bacteria and how cold it gets I guess.