Teaching creativity: MicromArt

Time running out..for antibiotics

For the past 4 years we have included a creative session in our second year undergraduate microbiology techniques module. The idea for each student is to produce an image using bacteria and yeasts. This is being done quite a lot now in other institutes but we ask our students to develop not just a pretty image but something that conveys a meaning perhaps about microbes or something quite unrelated. We use quorum sensing techniques and a range of agars and tools as the palette. There is a mini art show where students get to vote for best in show. Its interesting that the students that come up with the best ideas are not always the top graded students.