The Big Bang Fair 2014

18 March 2014

Earlier this March, the Society spent four days at the NEC, Birmingham, for another successful Big Bang Fair. We once again were proud to be a sponsor of the UK’s largest single celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths.

This year the Society’s interactive stand focused on 'The Real Superheroes' – microbes. This followed the theme of our February edition of Microbiology Today, and the aim was to inspire and excite the attendees to just a few of the amazing things that microbes can do. Armed with animations, models, plasticine, Petri dishes and microbe passports, visitors were able to explore this fascinating, microscopic world and discover why microbes are so important in our daily life. Young people could choose from a predatory fungus or bacteria or a bacterium and beautiful diatoms, each taking home the model and card of their microbe of choice.

The event attracted over 65,000 attendees, including young people, teachers and parents, and about 3,000 young people visited the Society for General Microbiology stand to take part in the activities. Teachers learned more about our school membership and were able to discuss doing microbiology practical work in schools, and parents also got to learn more about our 'superhero' microbes. But most importantly, the young people who took part were all really enthused by the microbes and left having realised just how amazing these organisms are.

Images from The Big Bang Fair 2014

We had an amazing team of staff and volunteers at our stand at The Big Bang Fair, who had a fantastic time sharing their enthusiasm for all things microbiological.  Hopefully some of them will help us at future events, where we’ll continue to spread the word of microbes – The Real Superheroes!