Microscopes

What are the key parts of a microscope?

From top to bottom:

- Eye piece lens

- Neck

- Objective lens

- Stage clip

- Stage

- Course focus knob

- Light source

- Fine focus lens

- Switch

- Base

How did you set up your microscope and microscope slides?

The microscope is easy to set up. You take a light, plug it in, and point the light toward the reflective surface under the stage. To set up the slide, you have to take your sample of a plant, or animal, and set it down on the slide. You then stain the slide/sample, which you can do with iodine. Now that the sample is stained, you can set the slide cover over top, making sure not to get any air bubbles. You then set the completed slide over the stage of the microscope and look down.

What did you observe down the microscope?

We tore off a sample of the transparent centre piece in a flax leaf, and ran that under the microscope. We were able to observe the plant cells and how how they're side-by-side, using eachother to make a skeleton-like structure.

We also observed a moth leg, but we weren't able to see the individual cells in the leg, only the outline of the leg itself.

What are key similarities and differences between plant and animal cells?

Both plant and animal cells have nuclei, mitochondria, as they're vital organelles.

The cell wall of plant cells are more square/rectangular in comparison to animal cells as, unlike animals, plants dont have skeletons. Plant cells are very close together, and use eachother to hold the plant upright. Animal cells are spaced further apart, and are of varying shape, as an animal's skeleton/vertebrae will hold them upright.