Jimbaran Fishing Communities Looking Closer with Foldscope

Megan Zimroth

Jimbaran Fishing Communities Looking Closer with Foldscope

Meaningful Design Group (MDG)

AWARD AMOUNT

500 USD

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Meaningful Design Group (MDG) is an organization that works to integrate the local approach to life of the indigenous cultures at its core, by seeking the balance between human wellbeing, community development, and environmental regeneration. Their goal is to build an experimental playground for entrepreneurs, innovators and researchers to have the opportunity to prototype and test ideas in the real world in the Balinese and other Indonesian contexts. 

“Jimbaran Fishing Communities Looking Closer with Foldscope” was a 1-day workshop in May 2023 at the traditional fishing village of Jimbaran Beach to expand on a previous pilot with the low-cost origami Foldscope microscopes with the Jimbaran-Kedonganan fishing communities. 

Communities learn to use a Foldscope to collect water samples and document changes. In order to prepare to work with the local fishermen, a Foldscope workshop was run with a local Bali high school and 10 student volunteers were taught how to assemble and use the Foldscope. This included collecting wet and dry samples and how to prepare those for the Foldscope. 

The MDG team then worked with the volunteers to teach around 15 to 20 local fishermen how to assemble and use the Foldscope. The workshop was well-received by all partiicpants. Not only were fishermen taught to use the foldscopes, but in the process of running a demonstration, the fishing community was curious about the health of the fish and the workshop team explored that interest to find evidence of microplastics in the fish they caught. 

The MDG team are continuing to collaborate with the Fab Lab Bali’s Frugal Science Initiative and are currently working on a small video recap of the 1st workshop session. They also plan to finish a Citizen Science Guidebook for Fishing Communities and establish the ecosystem for the fishermen with local universities to keep the citizen science movement going.

Reference Number: STEM-108

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