Dirty Parenting? Exploring good germs and bad germs in your child’s microbiome

Exploring your child’s microbiome at the Festival of Social Science

How do microbes get into and out of your body? Which bits of your body provide the best habitat for microbes? Are these microbes good for you, bad for you, or completely indifferent to you?  How can we encourage the ‘good’ germs and discourage or get rid of the ‘bad’ ones?

In this fascinating, hands-on activity as part of the Festival of Social Science 2021, Dr Beth Greenhough, Dr Maaret Jokela-Pansini and Professor Jamie Lorimer (School of Geography and the Environment) invited members of the public to create a body map of their child and explore their understanding of how microbes in our internal environment play a key role in our health, in this fascinating, hands-on activity.

Part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science

Children's cartoon representation of a society, showing transport systems, renewable energies, buildings, and young people with binoculars. Sign reads 'Exploring society together'