Foldscope comes to Boston
Oct 01, 2015 • 3:27 AM UTC
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mayaiad
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Part 1 of bringing microscopes to kids in Boston.
When I first saw the Foldscope three years ago, I was totally blown away, and I instantly thought about what I would have done as a kid at any age walking around with this in my pocket. And I decided that when I left Stanford, I’d try to bring the Foldscope with me. So, now it’s three years later: I’ve moved to Boston and am starting to set up outreach programs to bring kids and microscopes together.
Today was my first adventure in South Boston. Tim, a post-doc in the Harvard lab where I’m a PhD student, runs a weekly science class at his community center, and he asked me if I’d come give a “guest lecture”. That area of Boston doesn’t have the best schools or the most comprehensive science programs: in fact, 7th graders don’t get science class at all, because there aren’t enough teachers. Some of these kids have never seen a microscope, let alone carried one home with them.
That changed today.
I had a group of six kids, and we set out to build Foldscopes and then look at things found in the community center yard. It took some convincing to get the kids to actually build the scopes- many of them had no idea what they would “get” at the end, and it didn’t seem too exciting to look at “really tiny things.” But, in the end, we all got to finished microscopes.
My favorite moment happened at the very end. One girl in the class was wholly unimpressed by the entire Foldscope assembly. When I suggested that we look at something, she said she thought little things were boring. But, we went ahead and made a slide of her hair anyway. I showed her how to focus the scope, and that’s when it happened. She squinted a little, and as the hair came into focus, she said, “Oh… WOW.” I think that’s the sound of someone discovering their love of science.
Stay tuned for more kids with microscopes around Boston and Cambridge. 🙂
Looking at leaves with the newly-built foldscopes, and the aftermath of building microscopes. (Next time I need to remember to take more pictures rather than looking at every leaf found by the kids.)
When I first saw the Foldscope three years ago, I was totally blown away, and I instantly thought about what I would have done as a kid at any age walking around with this in my pocket. And I decided that when I left Stanford, I’d try to bring the Foldscope with me. So, now it’s three years later: I’ve moved to Boston and am starting to set up outreach programs to bring kids and microscopes together.
Today was my first adventure in South Boston. Tim, a post-doc in the Harvard lab where I’m a PhD student, runs a weekly science class at his community center, and he asked me if I’d come give a “guest lecture”. That area of Boston doesn’t have the best schools or the most comprehensive science programs: in fact, 7th graders don’t get science class at all, because there aren’t enough teachers. Some of these kids have never seen a microscope, let alone carried one home with them.
That changed today.
I had a group of six kids, and we set out to build Foldscopes and then look at things found in the community center yard. It took some convincing to get the kids to actually build the scopes- many of them had no idea what they would “get” at the end, and it didn’t seem too exciting to look at “really tiny things.” But, in the end, we all got to finished microscopes.
My favorite moment happened at the very end. One girl in the class was wholly unimpressed by the entire Foldscope assembly. When I suggested that we look at something, she said she thought little things were boring. But, we went ahead and made a slide of her hair anyway. I showed her how to focus the scope, and that’s when it happened. She squinted a little, and as the hair came into focus, she said, “Oh… WOW.” I think that’s the sound of someone discovering their love of science.
Stay tuned for more kids with microscopes around Boston and Cambridge. 🙂
Looking at leaves with the newly-built foldscopes, and the aftermath of building microscopes. (Next time I need to remember to take more pictures rather than looking at every leaf found by the kids.)
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