Date: 21 May 2024

Day 2: Tuesday

Time: 2:30-5:30 pm

Venue: LR 005, AC-04, Ashoka University

Name of the student: Athira S

From the beginning of the LGP programme itself I am so excited to be a part of this Foldscope workshop, where we can explore the microscopic world in an hands on way. In this we observed many samples such as hair sample,potatoes,leaves,pollen grains and fibres.

This is the observation of pollen grains with a magnification of 140x. under the foldscope the pollen grains appears to be small round structures with different patterns and textures. Here we can observe the cell wall which looks likes spikes and furrows. This was the one I like the most while comparing to other sample observations

This was the observation of leaf from the potato plant with magnification of same 340x. In this the green pigmentation of the leaf is clearly visible and also some different patterns and the cell wall and the leafy structure can also identify.

This was the pic of the observation of potato sample. to get the sample we just took a small piece of potato in a slide and smashed it. Then we used that to observe the potato cells and this is my observation . we can see a blury round round structures in a certain pattern and a thick outer wall.

This is the observation of hair sample by using the magnification of 140x. For this we used the hair from the eyebrow. we can see that the hair colour is black and we can clearly see the hair bulb .

These were the main observation I found . it was really interesting but at the same time we faced many challenged

we faced difficulties in preparing samples and positioning the samples in slides and observing it through the foldscope microscope.

But later we overcome the challenges and did it well it's all because of the support of our dearest Anupma ma'am and our TA.

Now also I am just wondering how just a simple tool can help us a lot. Anyway I am so happy to be a part of this one week workshop. I learned many new things from mistakes. Using this foldscope to observe different samples were really a fascinating experience. If I leave from Ashoka then also I will continue to observe using this small instrument. It was really an unforgettable experience for me.