Genetic Transformation Lab

Genetic engineering is a type of engineering where genes are modified to find cures, diseases, and more. Genetic engineering uses the central dogma, which is the idea of taking.
DNA transcribing it into RNA translates it into protein and expressing it as a trait. Recombinant plasmids are when DNA fragments are inserted into a plasmid vector. The recognition site is where the plasmid gets cut by the restriction enzyme which is an enzyme that cuts a DNA molecule. Recombinant DNA is the DNA being inserted into the E.Coli. The purpose of the lab is to see if we can make the E.Coli glow and resistant to ampicillin. In the lab we were transforming a north american jellyfish by the name Aequorea victoria to produce GFP, which is a fluorescent protein which causes them to glow green only if it has its friend arabinose sugar “ARA” and if it's under an ultraviolet light . We are expecting to see the bacteria grow and glow when the genetic transformation is completed. Throughout the few days the bacteria on each plate grew, some more than others and some not at all. The plate that had the most colonies was LB/AMP/+DNA but sadly the other plate with -DNA was blank since the DNA was negative the ampicillin killed it. And the plate with one black line had only 5 colonies.
But the spot where I believe our group messed up was when we had to scrape off a colony of bacteria. When we we verbally taught how to continue the procedure carefully and efficiently, it seemed pretty easy. As soon as we were ready to scrape with our loop everything smudged and it was hard to see if we had the right stuff on the loop or if we had anything at all. Another conclusion that i had was that we heat shocked our bacteria that we had left in the water for either too long or too little, but of course we could have also done the same when we had to leave it in the ice for a certain amount of