A little less than two months ago, I was passing by the lush vineyards of Cape Town’s 2nd oldest city, Stellenbosch. While I wasn’t there for the famous wine-testing, I instead headed to Stellenbosch University to hold two back-to-back workshops with electron microscopy and Foldscoping expert, Dr. Lydia-Marie Joubert (@lydiaj)!

Below are some photos from our workshop below at the Central Analytical Facilities (CAF) house, where we worked with learners from two high schools from the local township, Makapula and Kayamandi HS.

After assembling their own Foldscopes, students were able to look at chloroplasts, flower petals, and some of the boys dug around a bush to catch a cricket for their experiment!

Since the students were involved in a polluted water project with the Water Institute, we were especially excited to look at water droplets and soil collected from the Krom River.

Finally, this last photo is one of my favorites from that day, I don’t know who took it but I remember the students being really excited to learn how Foldscope can connect with their phones. To the right is Geevarghese, a UCT student who became one of my best friends from Cape Town, and I’m so grateful he unknowingly said “Sure, why not?” to this journey with me that day to help volunteer with these students!

Special thanks to Lydia once again for helping organize this outreach event, even getting great news coverage and creating an amazing video (which hopefully she’ll post soon when things are less hectic!).