Western Heritage Museum and Lea County Cowboy Hall of Fame
Zoo in You
Trillions of microbes make their homes inside our bodies, and we wouldn’t be able to survive without each other!
Zoo in You invites people of all ages to explore the vibrant world of our inner microorganisms through engaging, interactive, and bilingual exhibits while discovering who our constant microbial companions are, where they live, how diverse they are, and in what ways scientists are discovering just how important they are to our personal health.
This interactive bilingual (English and Spanish) exhibition explores the fascinating and complex world within us that is our microbiome — trillions of bacteria, viruses, fungi, and other non- human organisms living on and inside us as a dynamic, adaptable, and delicately balanced ecosystem much like any other found in nature. Our constant companions "colonize" us from birth, outnumber our human cells 10 to 1, and are so interwoven into our existence that we would not be able to survive without each other. Thanks to new sophisticated technology and the cutting-edge research of the National Institutes of Health’s Human Microbiome Project, we are discovering what these microbes are up to, where they live, how diverse they are, and in what ways they affect us.
ZOO iN YOU: THE HUMAN MiCRObiOME was produced and is toured by the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. This exhibit was made possible by a Science Education Partnership Award (SEPA) from the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
