MtA_BIOL2201_2026 Algae from Soil

Applause IconMar 16, 2026 • 5:17 PM UTC
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L Brooks

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I'm a loving partner, struggling musician, and biology student of Mount Allison University in Sackville, NB, Canada, taking microbiology with Dr. Loay Jabre. As an assignment, we were instructed to find some things to look at under the foldscope 2.0's given to us in class, so naturally, I scavenged my natural habitat (my dorm).

I noticed some algae growing in the soil of a spider plant potted in a glass jar on my windowsill, so I scooped some out and observed it with the foldscope 2.0 at 140x magnification with brightfield, and 5x camera zoom.
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Note that the cell walls of the algae can be observed in the strands in the center of the image. This part of the picture was digitally zoomed further in the following image.
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The following image was taken without 5x camera zoom.
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To allow the image to come into focus, tweezers had to be placed under the lens, forcing it away from the specimen. The process was intense, and by the time I was got a good picture, there were beads of sweat on my brow from the heat of the lamp underneath the foldscope, and the sheer level of concentration required.

This was one of my first foldscope adventures, but it was incredibly exciting to see some defined cellular structures, and not the miscellaneous dark blobs that I am normally only able to observe.

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