Date : 27th Aug 2018
Place : Worli Seaface BMC School, Mumbai
Participants : 23 students (across 3 divisions of Std. X)
Description :
In the first Foldscope outreach programme carried out by us, St Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Mumbai, collaborated with the Teach for India Foundation ( https://www.teachforindia.org/ ) and conducted a ‘Health and Hygiene Workshop’ at the Worli Seaface BMC school run by the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM). Students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds study in these schools.

The sophomore class of BSc Life Science students, as part of their ‘Microbes and Public Health’ course SLSC303, were asked to prepare short 10-15 min lecture- hands-on sessions for the school students on varied topics dealing with water and food-borne diseases and public health and hygiene. Foldscopes made a grand entry and were just the ideal tools to study microbes in a resource-constrained school. The students (and teachers) were excited to see and use a paper microscope for the first time in their lives. They eagerly awaited their turn to look through it and answered questions on health and hygiene. They themselves expressed an interest to test the quality of water from the school water purifier. That was a winner – to see their thirst for scientific exploration!

The school was gifted 10 Foldscopes to use across their science classes.

All in all, a very meaningful outreach session. The sophomores were sensitized to education in less privileged schools and got to actually apply their learning from classroom in a real life setting.

The Foldscope PIs would like to thank members of the Teach for India foundation, Dr Nandita Mangalore, Dr Radhika Tendulkar, Dr Binoj Kutty and SYBSc students from St Xavier’s College (Autonomous), Mumbai, and the Principal, the staff and students of the Worli Seaface BMC school for their enthusiastic response and active participation, and for making our first Foldscope outreach programme a grand success. And of course, our heartfelt thanks to DBT – Prakash Lab India Foldscope I grant for making it all possible.

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