Mapping Microbes at Camp Bestival

Research team members Emma Roe (PI) and Paul Hurley (Co-I) attended Camp Bestival at Lulworth Castle, Dorset, with the University’s Public Engagement Roadshow Team. We talked to families about AMR and some of the research taking place at Southampton.

Over the course of the weekend we helped hundreds of children decorate masks of different microbes and to take “cell-fies” in the ‘Microbe Mascquerade’ photo both. This led to great conversations with children and parents about the diversity of the microbiome, and about AMR.

We also used these chats as an opportunity to inform the research questions in the current project, listening to attitudes towards domestic microbes – variously described as ‘germs’, ‘nasties’, and ‘good’ / ‘bad’ bacteria. We also learnt a lot about the diversity of antimbicrobial cleaning products that families use and why, which will feed into the creative interviewing methods and activities we’ll be undertaking with families in Southampton.