hello everyone, During the workshop at IIT Mumbai I’d collected a sample of riccia from the walls and I found a variety of protozoans and nematodes in it along with polychaetes and flatworms as well! Everytime I foldscope a natural sample I’m just amazed by the fact that there really is a whole…
Category: Nature
Things connected to observations in ecological context
Line drawn using a ball point pen
Ball of a ball point pen sometimes leaves some gap in the centre because of which single line appears as two lines under the Foldscope. The gap is so small that it is not visible when we write on paper.
The way I wish I had been taught.
Dear Foldscope community: In many occasions, since I have been using my foldscope microscope, I have had the opportunity to watch fresh water oligochaeta worms. They are very abundant in debris enriched waters and quite “huge” to be easily observed in detail. When I was a University student, I don´t remember seeing them “in vivo”,-of…
How to use Foldscope in the History Classroom
Two History teachers from Maharashtra, India had Foldscope and they wanted to use it in their class. I’m writing this post to explain how history and science education are similar and how tools like Foldscope needed in history and science classrooms. I’m using task used in the following video by Young Historians as an example:…
Fern rhizome (standard sample)
I tried the standard sample fern rhizome. Results are amazing.
Epidermis of lily leaf
I peeled a small art of the lower epidermis and stained it with safranin. Then observed it under my foldscope.
Mosquito
I was enjoying the weather outside today, and so were skinny mosquitoes that kept trying to feast on my blood. I managed to stop one and place it on a slide. Update- Based on a helpful comment, I went back to the slide and took more pictures. The mosquito isn’t fresh anymore, but perhaps the…
A diversity of protozoa…
Hello foldscopers!!! It’s so good to be back & this time with a really different approach & the new foldscope model! The IIT B workshop was so wonderful that the eagerness to view & post something new had increased in me. So here’s a small sample that I had scraped from the walls of a boundary…
Testing my new foldscope!
Hello Everyone, So just day before yesterday I received my new Foldscope kit! 😀 and I couldn’t wait to make a bunch of posts. This was my first observation with my new Foldscope. It’s the permanent slide that came with the kit I collected a Riccia sample from IIT Bombay during the…
After rains insects
Hello! This observation is of last year..but as similar insects are started to arrive at home again so couldn’t stop from being posted. This is how they attack my home in bulk.And now under foldscope: Trying not to kill them by closing the windows and shooing away by switching off the lights. They become a…
#Dharavi diary foldscope
Workshop
At last, I am able to be in touch with you foldscopists! All this, after the Mumbai flood of 29 August! Thanks Deepak Modi for inviting us, cubists, to the IIT Foldscope mela. The Mumbai flood made us all (four cubists from two Mumbai colleges and a few of us) stay back at the Homi…
Wild Tetrahymena
Hi guys! First post with new foldscope. The microbe is a common wild type Tetrahymena from onion root soil sample. We learnt about this organism in theory about its self splicing RNA mechanism and getting to see the organism visually was just a great experience. The resolution and stability in capturing video is even more…
Moss observations with a foldscope
It was my first experience of making a foldscope and seeing somethings using the foldscope, at a workshop at IITB on 29th August. Myself alongwith Arunan, Nagarjuna, Rafikh (CUBE Lab, @HBCSE, TIFR) participated in the workshop. With quite a bit of maneuvering and dexterity, we managed to observe something that excited us watching through the…
Wonderful moment in Foldscope teachers workshop at IITB
Jim and I, along with DBT staff scientists, IITB, Ruia college and Dharavi Diary volunteers have been running workshops for teachers and IITB students. In continuation, today we a ran workshop at IITB campus with the focus of sharing experience of teachers. We started with a wonderful series of introductions and journeys that many teachers…
Harpaticoda and some mysterious things
Hello everyone, Recent I’d been on a trip to Jaigad which is in Konkan region of Maharashta, India. We visited this really famous Shiva temple in the locality known as Karhateshwar it is situated on the edge of the sea on a steep rocky mountain. There were steps to reach down to the sea where…
It’s a tick! And it is tiny!
My 6 year old son is enjoying a nature camp this summer. He spends the day learning about local creatures and playing in the woods. It’s fantastic! We live in New England and have to be very vigilant about ticks. And ticks are TINY! We check for ticks everyday. Today, after day 1 of nature camp,…
The Spots on Ferns – SF Conservatory of Flowers, continued….
Ferns are one of my favorite plants. In fact, my very first Microcosmos post concerned the very same. At our Foldscope workshop at SF Conservatory of Flowers this past Saturday (original post here), we took a closer look at those spots you see on the underside of ferns, which are sori, the spore-producing components of…
Foldscope at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers!
This past weekend, myself (Max) and Honomi Ijima from the Foldscope team had the pleasure of hosting a free outdoor public workshop at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers, where you can find many more natural wonders beyond the world of flowers. We were delighted to co-host with Drew Risner-Davis, an exhibit manager and ace…
Sand Crabs and Shrimp at Stinson Beach, CA!
A few months ago, Manu introduced me to the foldscope in Stinson Beach, CA! Here are some movies of the organisms we collected. IMG_4028.MOV Sand crabs respond to waves by coming out of the sand to feed on plankton. After the wave has passed, they burrow back into the sand. Here, Manu is disturbing the water to…
Our Latex experiments
We wondered what the white latex of a Ficus plant would look like under a Foldscope. Here is the experiment in 5 short videos Video 1/5: Latex in Ficus elongatus. Video 2/5. We spread the latex onto the slide. We had two slides, one in which we really stirred the latex and the other…
Testing Foldscope on pond scum, soil, onion, fish tank scum, and Morchella elata
We are a Stanford class, led by Prof. Margaret “Minx” Fuller, that is about to embark on a trip to Ecuador to study evolution in the Amazon rainforest and Andean cloud forest. We are very excited for the opportunity to use the Foldscope throughout the trip to look at whatever organisms we can find in…
Bloody lice
This morning ….I came across a small spider in the carpet ….which was struggling to move some dust ……well just finished my final exams yesterday…….. finally I can explore again. Sorry PETA the spider threatened me ,this is self protection and for science. The slide was ready in a min. fired up my phone cam,…
Exploring Plants at Ropes Mansion (Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA)
On May 27, 2017 the Art & Nature Center at the Peabody Essex Museum hosted a Foldscope and Origami Flower Workshop at the Ropes Mansion, one of the historic properties owned by the Museum. This 18th century property is home to a beautiful garden in which we host special programs periodically throughout the summer, and…
Found Feather
My students caught me checking out a feather that I found over the weekend. Curiosity is contagious; I had a circle of students around me in moments.
Unknown, Familiar Plant
This plant was growing in the grass outside of our suburban elementary school.
Mud
Today the class collected anything they wanted from the area around our suburban elementary school. This is the mud that was collected, spread out in a well slide with water.
Insect – Unknown Species
Unknown Species Unknown Species Unknown Species
Pond Plant
The class asked to see what one of the pond plants looked like. The sample is from a water hyacinth.