Two courses have been developed by the MO team and tested both in schools and in the lab. The course for elementary school students launched in 2006 and named ‘Microbs’ includes four (entertaining) lectures and four days of hands on experience, three at the school and one in our laboratory. Student parents are actively involved in this activity. The more advanced course for high school students named ‘Summer Molecular Microbiology Course’ was launched this year and involves two weeks of research involving culture isolation, PCR amplification, DNA cloning and sequence analysis. This course was taught in 2007 by an undergraduate student Lauren Palmer who was trained by the MO team.