Tia Leschke

We've got a pretty decent microscope that was given to us. It was a high
school one at one time. My granddaughter (8) sounded interested when I
asked if she'd like to mess around with it the next time she comes. Anybody
have any ideas for neat stuff to look at? I never got it out much with
Lars. He didn't sound interested, and I didn't know of any neat stuff that
might have sparked his interest. I've already thought of hair, skin
scrapings, saliva, and blood. (I'll prick my finger for a good cause.)
What I learned about microscopes in school has been completely forgotten. I
don't remember when and why you need to put a cover on a slide and that sort
of thing. Can anybody point me to some useful advice?
Tia

Lisa M. C. Bentley

> have any ideas for neat stuff to look at?

If your granddaughter is interested in the microscope, she'll come up
with an endless supply of things to look at under it. My daughter (6)
was begging for one and we got her one for her 6th birthday. She is now
6 and 5 months and she still spends countless hours mixing stuff up to
put under the microscope. After we all had thought of everything easy
to look at (grass, leaves, feathers, fabric fibers of all kinds, etc.),
she started mixing up spices and other food ingredients to look at.
Lemon juice does look different when hot than when cold. I can't even
count all the microscope experiments that she's done (some with food
colorings, some with ingredients that have been mixed then left to have
the liquid evaporate).

As far as the slides go, experiment with them, too. You'll find out
pretty quickly why they are nice for liquids.

-Lisa in AZ

Fetteroll

on 2/10/03 11:51 PM, Tia Leschke at leschke@... wrote:

> I
> don't remember when and why you need to put a cover on a slide and that sort
> of thing. Can anybody point me to some useful advice?

There's an Usborne book about microscopes. Those are always chock full of
ideas.

Joyce

Olif VanPelt

"I didn't know of any neat stuff that
might have sparked his interest."

The skin of an onion is always neat to look at because you can see the individual cells and cell walls so clearly. The part of the onion you want is that thin tissue-like piece that peels away. Is that making sense? If not I can try to explain it better. You can get iodine and stain it so that you can see it better. If you have any kind of science store, you should be able to get stain cheap.

Scrapings from the inside of your cheek is a great idea too!

One of my favorites was always pond water. There are little organisms that look like miniature copies of bigger animals. I remember one looking like a crab! For pond water you will need a cover slide.

Hmmm...I can't think of anything. You have some good ideas already. Don't forget that you can use, I think it is the high objective, for oil immersion. Oil immersion allows you to see things even larger than your highest objective- a lot larger. I don't know the kind of oil that is supposed to be used too. I don't know if you can substitute any oil around the house, like vegetable oil, or not. If you use oil though make sure you clean the lenses really well with lense paper afterwards.

-Olif

Oh, you can later do two things- add water to your onion cells and observe and then add a salt solution to your onion cell and observe. This demonstrates osmosis. When you add the salt, the cells should shrink. When you add water, they should enlarge. Sometimes they will even burst.

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[email protected]

On Mon, 10 Feb 2003 20:51:05 -0800 Tia Leschke <leschke@...> >
<Anybody have any ideas for neat stuff to look at? >

Mold is cool to look at. Bagels, homemade bread, shredded mozzarella, and
cream cheese all get moldy pretty quickly. Take a sample of dust out of
your vacuum cleaner bag and look at it. SCARY! Fish scales are fun too.

Wende

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[email protected]

In a message dated 2/10/03 11:52:54 PM Eastern Standard Time, leschke@...
writes:

> >>Anybody
> have any ideas for neat stuff to look at? <<

A drop of blood, hair root and for real cool stuff you can get already
prepared slides of different things, I got a bunch from E bay at a great
price.
Pam G.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/11/2003 3:05:24 AM Central Standard Time,
[email protected] writes:

> Can anybody point me to some useful advice?
>

We found The Microscope Book by Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone to be quite
helpful. Good explanation of the microscope, its parts and their uses, and
lots of very doable experiments. It's a good starting point.

Mary


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Tia Leschke

>
> The skin of an onion is always neat to look at because you can see the
individual cells and cell walls so clearly. The part of the onion you want
is that thin tissue-like piece that peels away. Is that making sense? If not
I can try to explain it better.

No, I know the part you mean. Good idea.

>
> Oh, you can later do two things- add water to your onion cells and observe
and then add a salt solution to your onion cell and observe. This
demonstrates osmosis. When you add the salt, the cells should shrink. When
you add water, they should enlarge. Sometimes they will even burst.

Sounds cool. Thanks for the tips.
Tia

Olif VanPelt

What about yogurt too? That would be neat!


----- Original Message -----
From: love-it-here@...
Sent: Tuesday, February 11, 2003 8:35 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] Microscopes


On Mon, 10 Feb 2003 20:51:05 -0800 Tia Leschke <leschke@...> >
<Anybody have any ideas for neat stuff to look at? >

Mold is cool to look at. Bagels, homemade bread, shredded mozzarella, and
cream cheese all get moldy pretty quickly. Take a sample of dust out of
your vacuum cleaner bag and look at it. SCARY! Fish scales are fun too.

Wende

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[email protected]

At the natural history museum here they have a low table with microscopes
mounted around it. We keep a collection of stuff to look at. Cool thing
about these is that they can be backlit or toplit, or both (the dial moves
along the range of top to bottom), so you can look at stuff from the top.
Credit cards are GREAT. The holograms, especially. Coins. The edges of
fingernails--gross. Cuts and splinters--COOL! Keys are fun. The edge of
paper. Thread, cloth.

The museum has a little collection of stuff like snake skin and feathers and
bugs, but sometimes the stuff we've taken has been more fun, and we leave
some stuff there each time.

We should go tomorrow. <g>

Sandra

[email protected]

In a message dated 2/11/03 7:37:50 AM, love-it-here@... writes:

<< Take a sample of dust out of
your vacuum cleaner bag and look at it. SCARY! >>

NO!!! TOO SCARY!!!

[email protected]

My oldest daughter got a kick out of seeing what lives in the water at the
lake, a local pond, my grandfather's pond, puddles...

[email protected]

On Tue, 11 Feb 2003 11:25:47 -0600 "Olif VanPelt" <ovanpelt@...>
writes:
> What about yogurt too? That would be neat!

That would be neat. And you could open up a capsule of acidophulus, or
penicillin and compare live active cultures to dead(?) inactive cultures.

Wende

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Have A Nice Day!

Anyone have a suggestion where I can get a reasonably priced microscope that is user friendly?

I've been wanting one for years but the money always ends up going for something else. I"m hoping to get one in the next few weeks.

Kristen


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

coyote's corner

Hmmm...maybe school surplus? (Is there such a thing??)
Maybe an old model that some college or lab would sell to raise some money?

When I was a kid, I had one.....metal..I think it came from???Santa??

Janis
----- Original Message -----
From: Have A Nice Day!
To: [email protected]
Sent: Saturday, May 17, 2003 5:50 PM
Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] Microscopes


Anyone have a suggestion where I can get a reasonably priced microscope that is user friendly?

I've been wanting one for years but the money always ends up going for something else. I"m hoping to get one in the next few weeks.

Kristen


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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[email protected]

In a message dated 5/17/03 5:51:16 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
litlrooh@... writes:

> Anyone have a suggestion where I can get a reasonably priced microscope that
> is user friendly?
>
>

I found a really nice, professional type of scope on E bay, refurbished.
Works great.
Pam G.


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Deborah Lewis

***Anyone have a suggestion where I can get a reasonably priced
microscope that is user friendly?***

My brother sent us one from a vector control lab that was selling off old
equipment and buying new. It's a great scope, it was well taken care of
and it was just a couple of dollars.

Do you have an entomology department at a university near you, or a
county extension agent you could ask about surplus science equipment?

Deb L

Tia Leschke

> Hmmm...maybe school surplus? (Is there such a thing??)
> Maybe an old model that some college or lab would sell to raise some
money?

When they built a new high school here, they *gave* away all the old
microscopes.
Tia

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
saftety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin
leschke@...