When Good Water Goes Bad
Water is vital to life and usually thought of as health-giving. We are told "Be sure to drink enough water."
But sometimes drinking water isn't health-giving. If water is contaminated, it can make people sick or even kill them.
Figuring out why water sometimes brings diseas and death to its drinkers is a detective story that began well over a hundred years ago. New chapters are added every time there is a new outbreak of water-borne disease.
- Tracking the Culprits
- How the perpetrators were identified
- The Most (Not) Wanted
- Meet the most common and nasty causes of water-borne disease
- A Couple of Cases
- Work along with investigators on two real disease outbreaks
- Keeping Safe
- How do we make sure water is fit to drink?
- What Was the Problem?
- Do you know the story behind these headline-making events?
Causes of Water Contamination
This exhibit explores water contamination by micro-organisms - tiny living creatures such as bacteria and amoebae that cause disease in humans.
Water can also be made unsafe to drink by chemical contamination - but that's another story.
