School Microbiome Program for Life, SMPL (‘Simple’), is an outreach program supported by CMiST to educate the youngest members of our community about the human microbiome and encourage them to take an active role in their own health and wellness.

Seattle Area middle schooler, Mehr Grewal, reached out to CMiST because she wanted to talk to an expert in the field and gather information about the microbiome to incorporate into her educational talk series for her peers. I suggested that perhaps we work together and took her talk title, ‘My Healthy Plate,’ and expanded it to ‘School Microbiome Program for Life’ so she could expand beyond nutrition and the microbiome and include other topics since the microbiome’s reach is vast (proposal below). I also created the overview document and the gut microbiome slides using Harry Potter as the theme.