What we are using

14 May 2011

Biology slides from this week

This week CC and her lab partner plus LB made slides of onion skin and scrapings from their cheeks.  These are pictures from our microscope.


Cheek scrapings showing human cells

Onion skin showing plant cells

From the same onion skin slide

Another view in of the cheek scraping slides.  The kids were eating mango before making the slides and we think we found some

More information about the slides as requested..
These pictures came straight from our microscope, it takes digital pictures and video and has a mini-USB port so I can connect it straight to my computer to copy the pictures. It is a Celestron 44340 LCD Digital LDM Biological Microscope. It only does up to 400x magnification, but it is enough for this age.  We used a slide make kit from Home Science tools and followed directions from ClassiQuest Biology.

Last week, the kids learned to make slides and stain them using methylene blue (to stain acidic cell parts) and eosin Y (to stain alkaline cell parts).  This week they were comparing plant and animal cells.  We have prepared slides as a backup and for extra viewing, but the kids really prefer to make their own.  It seems more real and more interesting if the slides are their own creations.

3 comments:

WildIris said...

Way cool! How did you get these photos? My DD~8 would love to try this. Can you write a blog post about this, how you did it etc.?

Karen said...

I added more details to the post with microscope and slide making details.

WildIris said...

Thanks for the links!