Lesson 4: It's alright to be little bitty…

Once you really know the microscope parts and functions of those parts, it’s time to learn to make a wet mount slide.  Watch this video tutorial and then we’ll practice:

Now, let’s make our own wet mount slides.  If you have a good microscope, you can do this at home.  Seminar students will make the slides at the seminar. 

You will need: 
Your microscope
slides
cover slips
an eyedropper
water
specimens to look at:  a thread, table salt, and a human hair
microscope paper for drawing what you see (click on the “microscope lab paper”  link in the Sunesis blackboard above to print one.

First, turn on your microscope. Make sure you can see light when you look through the ocular lens.

 Rotate the revolving nosepiece until you are looking through the lowest power (scanning) objective.

Next, cut a very small bit of thread and drop it onto the center of a clean slide.

Use your eyedropper to cover the thread with one drop of clean water.
Carefully drop a cover slip over the water drop. Try not to allow air bubbles to get caught under the cover slip.
Clip the slide carefully into the stage clips of your microscope.  Make sure the thread is in the center. 

While looking through the ocular lens, adjust the coarse focus until you can see the image. Slowly adjust the focus until the image is centered and crisp.

Fine tune your focus using the fine focus knob.
Then rotate the revolving nosepiece so that you can look at the thread through the middle  power objective. 

 Draw what you see into one of the circles on your microscope lab paper.  Make sure to record the magnification of the objective you are using.  The image should look something like this:

Now let’s look at a human hair. Repeat the above steps with a clean slide and a hair off of your own head.   Don’t forget to turn your revolving nosepiece back to the scanning objective.   Try to look at the very edge of the hair where you pulled it out. It should look something like this:

 

Draw a picture of what you see on your microscope lab report.

Lastly, let’s look at a wet mount of table salt. Place a few grains of salt onto a clean slide and repeat the above steps.   It should look something like this:

Before you clean up your mess, look around your house to get ideas of other specimens to look at. 

Click on the Van Leeuwenhoek link in the below to watch a video about the scientist who developed the modern microscope.

 

NOW…are you ready for our first TEST?

Study these flashcards to help you prepare:  click on the card to look at the answer.  Then click on the “correct cards” rectangle if you got the answer right, and the “incorrect cards” one if you did not.  Try the ones you missed again.

Then review the microscope parts and functions (don’t forget to look over the answers to the microscope homework assignment). 

Then click the “Contact Us” envelope icon on the right and ask for test number 1, and I will email it to you.