• India International Science Festival (IISF) Lucknow, October 2018

Foldscope training workshop was conducted at the Science Village, IISF Lucknow India 2018. 2000 Children from across the country were

trained in using the foldscope.

Over 2000 Students and 600 Teachers  participated in Foldscope Workshop at IISF 2018

90  Students and 17  Teachers from 12 Aspirational Districts participated in Foldscope Workshop at IISF 2018

WORKSHOPS IN THE MOST RESOURCE CONSTRAINT REGIONS OF INDIA

• Remote Tribal Village, Kharha, Chhattisgarh

Cell images projected using Foldscope through Night Film Shows at remote tribal village, Kharha, Chhattisgarh State Conducted by Dr Mooventhan Palanisamy. The Place had no electricity yet Dr. Mooventhan took Foldscope to the one of the most resource constraint area. The children and residents were amazed by the images projected through Foldscope.

• Kendriya Vidyalaya, Aizawl :The students at Kendriya Vidyalaya, Aizwal were introduced to foldscope and world of microbiology and basic hygiene. The students of the class 9^th and 10^th participated in the workshop. Students observed pre-prepared slides including various specimen including fungal sporangia, apical bud of plant and cross-section of fern rhizome.

• Remote Village in Himachal Pradesh:

In the month of July, workshop was conducted in a remote village of Himachal Pradesh where students were trained and taught about sample preparation and observation. The students observed water samples, collected from a stagnant water, moving rotifers, leaves and flowers.

Harvesting Knowledge off the Farms
Foldscope succeeded in bring out science to the commoners: Instructors sharing Foldscope experience with locals and farmers in various remote villages of Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan.
Foldscope has proven its worth in the field of agriculture. For example, Foldscopes were used to identify the microscopic eggs of agricultural pests in India, to catalog the biodiversity of soil arthropods, follow toxic blooms, detect bacteria in water samples, map pollen diversity in a city landscape

• NCCS, Pune and ICAR Research Complex for Northeastern Hill Region Meghalaya conducted workshop on the Foldscope for students from North-East:

Under this program a group of  15 MeECL School, Shillong visited NCCS, Pune between 12^th to 15^th November 2018.

During this visit the students visited different labs at

• NCMR campus
• NCCS main campus
• IISER, Pune
• One-day field trip to Panshet dam, Pune

• • Eden Educational Resource Centre, Madurai

  16 Training carried out all over Tamil Nadu including:

  • Field Visits to 10 Places,
  • 8 Bio walks,
  • Foldscope Exhibition and Demonstrations in schools, colleges, book fairs, parks etc.

  Trained about:

  • 95,000 students
  • 15,000 commoners
  • 17,000 teachers.IITTribal school children at Vellimalai, Vilupuram district
  • IIT Bombay for school students from J&K Migrant Camp School

• 40 students and 7 teachers from Jammu and Kashmir migrant camp schools participated.
• The initiative was taken by IITB and was sponsored by IDEA cellular as part of their corporate social responsibility.

Dr. Jim Cybulski, Foldscope instruments  demonstrating the assembly of Foldscope to Students and teachers  from J&K migrant camp school trained at IIT- Bombay

• Government Schools and Shiksha Kendras in rural Rajasthan
• Kumbhalgarh, Rajsamand District – Around 40 children were trained to assemble and use foldscope from Government Schools in Gundika Bhilwara, a tribal hamlet, and Aret ki bhagal, in Kumbhalgarh block of Rajsamand District. The children took the lead – anything and everything was a sample for foldscope! Their curiosity and understanding made it easy to develop the science based WASH curriculum for Shiksha Kendras.

• Udaipur District – Shiksha Kendras are Non-Formal Education Centres established by Seva Mandir, in areas with no/low access to schools across Udaipur district. Shiksha Kendra instructors usually hail from the same village who have a slightly better education level among other locals yet are passionate for educating the next generation.

                                                                                  children from a tribal hamlet of Rajasthan

• 155+ instructors from 150 Shiksha Kendras trained
• over 4500 children trained across all the Shiksha Kendras.
• The foldscope trainings have been with major focus on viewing germs in real, which they had only heard of during sanitation awareness campaigns, and understand the science behind sanitation and hygiene to empower them with knowledge to make an informed decision towards their sanitation practices.
• A separate Science curriculum is proposed to be added to their existing Hindi-English-Maths curriculum.

• B.R Ambedkar Insitute of Technology, Port Blair

A one day National Conference on Foldscope will be held during March 2019 at Dr.B.R.Ambedkar Institute of Technology(Govt.), Port Blair under the command of Dr. E.Muthu Kumaran, Assistant professor who is also the Principle Investigator for one of the funded Foldscope project. Along with his team, He has been working to analyse for phytoplankton and zooplankton species richness and diversity as well as chlorophyll content.

Nematodes and mites in pond freshwater; copepods, diatoms, planktonic gastropods and polychaete larvae from seawater were observed by Dr. Kumaran during his project.

• Foldscope Workshop in Bastar

Mr Prem Sewak Sudhish affiliated to Dayal Singh College, working towards education in tribal areas of MP, Bihar; conducted a Foldscope workshop in Bastar.

The enthusiasm and hunger to learn spotted when the children came up with handmade Foldscopes when they ran out of Foldscope kits.

Children came up with handmade Foldscopes when the Trainer ran out of kits

Actively participating Children at one of the workshops conducted in a school in Bastar.