Plankton tow off the coast of Dakar, Senegal

Jun 25, 2022 • 5:59 PM UTC

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Manu Prakash

I am a faculty at Stanford and run the Prakash Lab at Department of Bioengineering at Stanford University. Foldscope community is at the heart of our Frugal Science movement - and I can not tell you how proud I am of this community and grassroots movement. Find our work here: http://prakashlab.stanford.edu

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In my last trip to Senegal – I spent a lot of time talking to local fisherman trying to understand local fishing practices and the community at large. It was remarkable to watch small boats go out early morning. Everyone I met and spoke to had a unique perspective of what the ocean meant to them. After enough time on the beach, it was clear – I needed to figure out a way to spend some time on the water myself. This would be my first time off western African coast. The fact that these were local fishing boats painted in beautiful colors, only increased my desire to head out into the water.
Serendipitously, I found myself at ECOLE SUPERIEURE
POLYTECHNIQUE in Dakar and at “laboratory of atomospheric and climate physics” led by Prof Amado Thierno GAYE and many of his students and lab members.
First challenge I had to solve was – I had no plankton net. So I went to the market – got some fine thread pantyhose and built a simple net https://microcosmos.foldscope.com/?p=17431. It worked remarkably well.
We spent half a day on the water; came back to the university to run a workshop for the students and researchers on École polytechnique campus.
I did find a new copepod I had not seen before.
The student group will be running a number of local workshops for students across the campus and the broader community. I am excited about engaging the fishing community in exploration of blooms that they see regularly in the water locally.
Cheers
Manu