In preparation of the 300th death anniversary of Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (2023) a team of historians of science and art, biologists, television documentary makers, interactive website/app developers and visual artists together with education experts develop an education program combined with an interactive multimedia digital platform to engage school pupils in an experimental way with the invention and the societal impact of the microscope from the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century up to the present. Aim is to create trust in science. First ca. 300 pupils, not close with science, in a process of co-creation with this team will learn in lessons on location to represent their observations in drawings, to interpret them and to communicate about them. These lessons will be translated into a program and tested during the project with 1500 pupils to reach out to 3000 pupils in weekend education and 8000 primary/secondary schools. A documentary follows this explorative journey of the pupils to “the smallest”, not with the naked eye observable in the past and today, and the dialogues between scholars about visualizing the unknown. It is the prelude to a much bigger documentary series and public events planned for the Antoni van Leeuwenhoek anniversary.
