It was  Leeuwenhoek Day on September 7

Though we @ GGDSD came to know about this day through microcosmos only, and then tried to make students aware  about it.

Anton van Leeuwenhoek (1632–1723) is credited with bringing the microscope to the attention of biologists.  He is best known for his work on the improvement of the microscope and for his contributions towards the establishment of microbiology.

He received little education but he became a Linen Draper. To inspect cloth, drapers used magnifying glass. He started grinding his own lenses from glass globules and constructed microscope and peeped into the microbial world. Using his handcrafted microscopes he was the first to observe and describe single celled organisms, which he originally referred to as animalcules .

Brief History of day

His descriptions communicated to The Royal Society in London in a series of 190 letters spanning around 50 years. An extract from a letter dated September 7, 1674 he wrote about the organisms he found in water taken from a lake called the Berkelse Mere , he announced his first sighting of little animals in water.

Source:

Carey, John. (1997).  Little animals in water. Eye witness to Science. Ed By. J. Carey. Harvard Univ. Press. Cambridge Massachusetts. Pp 28-29.

We remembered this day by taking out foldscopes and peeping into microbial world and observing through the camera of smart phone.

Events of the day are already posted by Dr. Dua  #Remembering Sir Leeuwenhoek on this day.

Few images foldscoped by students

Similar slide observed with different smart phones.

Volvox is a polyphyletic genus of chlorophyte green algae in the family Volvocaceae. It forms spherical colonies of up to 50,000 cells.

They live in a variety of freshwater habitats, and were first reported by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1700.