A workshop on “Foldscopes” was organized on November 04, 2018 for 78 high school students from State Government Schools in the vicinity of IISER Bhopal.  The workshop taught the participants basic principles of microscopy (in local language) and guided them on assembling and using Foldscopes. This was a part of the Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyan (RAA) flagship scheme (MHRD). The workshop was conducted by the student volunteers of RAA.

Rashtriya Avishkar Abhiyaan ( RAA) is an MHRD flagship scheme that aims at nurturing a spirit of curiosity and creativity for Science and Mathematics in school children from State Government Schools from an early age. Under this flagship scheme IISER Bhopal has been assigned a few schools to mentor in the nearby villages. Our student volunteers have been visiting these Government schools Saturday to conduct classes in Science and Mathematics since 2015. As the schools do not have labs a project was submitted to Department of Biotechnology, Government of India following its call for proposals in the category “Crowd-sourcing science tool” under a citizen science endeavour for using “Foldscopes” as educational and training tool in State Government Schools. The “Foldscopes” received from DBT are now being used by the volunteers as teaching tools in these schools.