Last week, we organized a school visit in ERIBA for around 80 school children aged ~10-12 years old. They are learning about microbiology in school, so after showing them the labs in ERIBA we did two activities with them to show them how micro-organisms are all around us.
To understand the importance of washing hands and cleaning, they pressed their finger-prints (before and after washing their hands) and a swab of an object of choice on agar plates. After incubation, we clearly saw colonies of bacteria and fungi grow, especially before washing hands and on the object of choice! It was fun to discuss which objects each kid chose to swab (including: the toilet seat, faucet and phone) and see how clean these things were.
Furthermore, they brought everyday things containing micro-organisms (e.g. ditch water, sauerkraut, baker's yeast and blue cheese) and we looked at these under the microscope to show them what micro-organisms look like and how they are not always harmful but can also be useful.
All-in-all, this day was a great success and the school children (and us!) really enjoyed it!
