Small life, big impact
We spent the best morning walking and exploring the microorganism museum called Micropia in Amsterdam.
You enter the museum via a large, dark elevator that creeps up to the second floor while overhead microbes are being introduced to the participants. I’m jittery from excitement, almost jumping out of my skin, wanting to learn about the world I cannot see. My family always jokes that I’ll be a lifelong student as I love to learn - this was evident that day. You enter this dark room where glow in the dark microbes are being lit up like fireworks. All along the room, there are microscopes, petri dishes with live organisms, interactive videos, stamp collecting stations and even smelling stations to discover the world beyond our eyes.
My favourite part was downstairs where you discover the invisible world of gut microbes in the Tour de Poo. Yes, you did read it correctly, Tour de Poo. “ About one-half of poo consists of gut microbes. These trillions of organisms are not only essential for your health, but they are also used for all kinds of sustainable processes” (micropia). Sadly, this is where the smelling stations are so you can only imagine my perplexed facial expression when a museum wants me to smell microbes that are found in poo. But what the heck, we did it. It certainly was interesting, that's all I’m going to say.
Upstairs is a labyrinth for learning. It is interactive, grossly fascinating and absolutely beautiful. Here are some shots of microbes through microscopes that seem otherworldly:
Here are some shots of petri dishes with a variety of colourful everyday organisms, from the microbes that are found under our shoes to in between our toothbrush bristles and so much more.
You can’t see them, but they’re here. They are on you. In you. And you’ve got more than a hundred thousand billion of them. After visiting Micropia, you will never see yourself, or the world, in the same way again. A must see for the whole family!
