{"id":490,"date":"2021-01-30T17:34:02","date_gmt":"2021-01-30T17:34:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/scopedetective.com\/?p=490"},"modified":"2021-01-30T17:48:46","modified_gmt":"2021-01-30T17:48:46","slug":"microscope-prepared-slide-activities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scopedetective.com\/microscope-prepared-slide-activities\/","title":{"rendered":"5 EASY Prepared Slide Microscope Activities (for Beginners)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Prepared slides are the easiest way to get a taste of the world of microscopy. You can skip all the hard work of finding specimens to look at and use ones provided for you by the professionals!<\/strong><\/p>\n I would recommend to all people new to microscopy to get a set of prepared slides. This is especially true if you plan on working with younger children. They often want to see cool things under a microscope, but the learning curve of finding critters in moss and pond water can be a little hard at the start.<\/p>\n So prepared slides are a way to inspire kids’ (and adults’!) scientific minds before you move on to some more difficult microscopy activities.<\/p>\n For this activity, I’m using 5x prepared slides that I got with my Levenhuk Rainbow 50L PLUS. It’s my preference as the best microscope for kids for a variety of reasons, but one key reason is their provided experiment kit is really fun.<\/p>\n The 5 prepared slides in the kit I received contained:<\/p>\n For this activity, we’re going to take a look at all 5!<\/p>\n > This article is from my series on simple microscope projects for beginners<\/a><\/p>\n\n The objectives of this activity are:<\/p>\n To get your microscope ready for use, follow the procedure below:<\/p>\n The first prepared slide we’re looking at is a fly leg. Follow the above procedure to take a close look at the fly leg.<\/p>\n At 100x magnification you should be able to very clearly see the hairs on the leg of the fly:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0Scan along the leg of the fly until you reach its foot. This will be the very thin, pointy end. You should also be able to see two claws.<\/p>\n Here, pause and take a look at how the foot of the fly is constructed. It doesn’t have five toes like us. Instead, it has two tiny little claws called tarsal claws. You might also be able to see two pads behind the claws. The pads are called Pulvilli.<\/p>\n This prepared slide provides a good lesson in “How flies walk on walls”. The fly uses both the claws and the pulvilli to achieve this. The claws are used on rough surfaces like curtains to claw their way up.<\/p>\n But on smooth surfaces and ceilings, the fly relies on the pulvilli. On each step, the hundreds of tiny hairs on each pulvillus (called setae) excrete a sticky substance made up of oil and sugar. This substance helps the fly literally stick to surfaces.<\/p>\n Each step the fly takes involves using the claws to peel its stuck pulvilli off the surface, then as the leg goes back down again, it re-sticks to the surface.<\/p>\n > Get the Full Lesson plan and Worksheets for this Activity Here<\/a><\/p>\n Onion cells are one of the most exciting of microscopy activities for beginners. This activity is the first one you do where you can actually spot not only cells and cell walls, but the nucleus of a cell.<\/strong><\/p>\n For beginners, you might need to know a little about how cells work.<\/p>\n Cells are the building blocks of life.<\/strong> All plants and animals are built up of cells. For us humans, we’re comprised of billions of cells. But there are plants and animals so small that they’re single celled organisms. Cells are much bigger than atoms and contain many subcellular structures inside them such as DNA which tell the cell how it should behave. Cells reproduce through cell division.<\/p>\n Some of the basic elements of cells include:<\/p>\n That was a very basic introduction. As you can see from the below image, there can be a lot going on within a cell:<\/p>\n (Public Domain Image from Wikimedia Commons<\/a>. The creator of this image is Lady of Hats<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n\n
Prepared Slides Activity for Microscope Beginners<\/h2>\n
Activity Objectives<\/h3>\n
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What you Need<\/h3>\n
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Setting up the Microscope<\/h3>\n
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1. Looking at a Fly Leg Prepared Slide<\/h3>\n
2. Looking at an Onion Cell Prepared Slide<\/h3>\n
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