• Student Name: Gopika Anil, Ramya Nambiar and Shwetha Santhosh
• Name of college: CMR National PU College ITPL
• Sample: Yeast undergoing budding

As students of eleventh grade, we had recently studied about Kingdom Fungi in our biology class. When we were given the opportunity to observe any sample under the foldoscope we chose to take a sample of yeast.

We knew yeast was scientifically called Saccharomyces and belonged to Division Ascomycota. After we mounted the specimen, we got a pleasant surprise. We were fortunate enough to see a sample of yeast undergoing budding under the foldoscope. On closer inspection we could see a single ovoid bud projecting from the bigger parent yeast cell. Out of the many granules of yeast that we had mounted, only one of the cells had a bud attached to it.

We usually don’t get the chance to see the physiological activities of unicellular organisms due to lack of easily accessible viewing operators. However due to the arrival of the foldoscope in our college, we have gotten the opportunity to observe many such phenomena invisible to the naked eye. This has helped us understand our curriculum better in school and also inculcate a sense of curiosity in all our minds on the miniscule phenomena happening around us unknown to our eyes.