We need your help!
We are researchers at the University of Warwick, and we need YOUR help.
You have probably tried pond dipping in the past, and looked for minibeasts. They may seem small, but we're looking for smaller things, even smaller than bacteria. We are looking for viruses. Most viruses don’t infect people, they attack bacteria – they’re called bacteriophage and it’s these we’re after. Bacteriophage infect bacteria just as much as colds and flu infect us. They’re everywhere but they’re so small we need a huge electron microscope to see them.
We want your class to fetch us some water from somewhere outside. A pond, a stream, a river or a lake – it doesn’t matter which as long as you tell us about it and tell us the postcode.
We will collect the viruses from the water sample, take pictures under our electron microscopes and put them up on the website so you can see what the smallest things in your pond look like.
