DBT Foldscope scheme – “Foldscopes  for diagnosis of rumen acidosis and parasitic infections in cattle”.

An Awareness program on’ Introduction to Foldscope- An Origami paper microscope” was held at S.J.T. Surana Jain Vidyalaya Higher Secondary School  ( No.2, Badrian Garden Lane, Park Town) Chennai – 600 003 for the class 9 students on 31.10.2018 by the Dept of Animal Biotechnology, Faculty of Basic Sciences, Madras Veterinary College, Chennai-07.

Around 120 students (  2 batches of 60 students each)  attended the awareness program. We gave a brief introduction on Foldscope, on how it works, it’s advantages (low cost, portable, user friendly etc.)and applications. We then split them into 6 groups of 10 students in each group. Each were given a basic foldscope kit for them to explore on their own. The children were in awe when they were able to  visualize rumen bacteria and blood smears without having the fear of damaging the foldscope or breaking the slides.

At the end, they were asked to fill up feedback forms and their response was pretty good. When asked “what did you like the best or find most useful about this program” to which a student wrote “ Viewing of a bacteria was the most useful thing for me”.

Even the teachers were very interested that they wanted to get Foldscopes for their school.The overall feedback was good. Now these students have an idea about Foldscope

Dr. S. Meignanalakshmi (PI) gave a brief introduction to the children.

Dr. S. Meignanalakshmi (PI) and Kamalini Esther ( JRF) explaining about Foldscope

Children eagerly seeing the rumen bacteria/ blood smears under foldscope.

Feedback forms.