Being a part of Foldscope team @ GGDSD College, Chandigarh (India) has been an interesting and challenging experience for me.

My journey began from ICGEB, New Delhi on 16 ^th of April, 2018, where I along with my PI (Principal Investigator) attended the Foldscope Orientation Workshop. We learnt to assemble the tiny pieces and use them for practical purposes.

Foldscope was a totally new thing for me. I had never heard of it before. So, I was excited and thrilled but also a little nervous at this new venture.

Back home in Chandigarh, things were not so easy. Like me, nobody knew about it. The real challenge had begun. It was difficult to convince my fellow colleagues (who were great researchers), that a simple piece of paper could be folded into a cheap, handy microscope with magnification as good as a sophisticated and costly compound microscope.

I assembled and re-assembled the pieces a couple of times and tried to peep through it to become well-versed with its usage. Thanks to the efforts and faith put in me by my PI –Dr. Samriti Dhawan, now I am a Foldscope Instructor of Foldscope team @ GGDSD College, Chandigarh.

Foldscope team is working with a mission to make science education a fun activity, for which a series of workshops and summer camps during vacations are being organized. The target participants are being encouraged to explore the natural world around them with the help of Foldscopes. We intend to engage teachers from schools and colleges in and around Chandigarh to be a part of our team.

In the subsequent posts that will follow, I would be sharing the slides we prepared during some of the Foldscope awareness workshops.