Microbe Power

A very, very busy day at Cheltenham again today. As we had so many people at the stand on Saturday we realised we were running very short of balloons for our experiment.

We were sent out this morning on an emergency shopping trip to find more. It was surprisingly hard to find balloons in Cheltenham on a Sunday morning.....eventually, after much help from locals, we managed to find a suitable source. Apologies to any 1 yr olds and 50 yr olds in Cheltenham this week - we bought up all the balloons available! We only just had enough which means we did about 350 experiments today.....no wonder I'm feeling a bit worn out (and there's a vague aroma of yeast around me despite several showers).

It was a great event and the children really seemed to enjoy our activities. The picture shows our water bath full of yeast balloons - our tag line was 'come and inflate a balloon using the power of microbes!'. Mix bread yeast, sugar and water in a tube, shake well, put balloon over mouth of tube and keep warm for 20 mins - result? A balloon full of carbon dioxide produced by microbe power.

Think I may now indulge in another microbial product and find a glass of wine.....