Introduction:

In this lab, my partner Jacob Hodge and I will be doing four different experiments using a microscope. The purpose of this lab is to know the proper technique of focusing and making slides. In these experiments, Jacob and I will learn the parts of a compound light microscope, the functions of those parts, and the proper use and care of the microscope. We will also learn how to clean up wet mount slides.

Objects, or specimens, to be observed under a microscope are generally prepared in one of two ways. Prepared or permanent slides are made to last a long time. They are usually purchased from biological supply houses. Temporary or wet mount slides are made to last only a short time-usually one laboratory period. In the 1600’s, Anton von Leeuwenhoek discovered the life that lives in a drop of pond water. This discovery opened up a new world for biologists that could be explored only with the aid of magnification. Since Leeuwenhoek’s time, the microscope has become one of the most important tools used by biologists. Much has been learned about the nature of life and about living things with the help of the microscope.

Methods & Materials:

Compound light microscope

prepared glass slide

lens paper

newspaper

beaker

rubbing alcohol

glass slide

coverslip

forceps

pipette

scissors

kim wipes

dark thread

light thread

medicine dropper

pond water

The steps or procedures of the regular class procedure is first we had to grab the two microscopes that Jacob and I were using. Then we would have to get the wet-mount slide ready for experimentation or since we did one permanent slide we would have to go grab one of the permanent slides. Once as we made the wet-mount slide or grabbed the permanent slide we had to do the correct procedures to make sure we would be able to see the specimen that we are looking for. First we had to put the magnification on low power then we had to move the table that had the slide on it to make sure that we could get the slide close enough or at the right spot to see clearly and then we had to use the fine adjustment knobs to make to specimen clear enough to look at. But near the end of the class we would get about the last five minutes to clean up slides and put away microscopes. The correct procedure to clean up a wet-mount slide is first we rinse the slide off in the sink. Second we put the coverslip in the mini-size beaker. Third we swirl the slide in alcohol for a final rinse but we had to make sure that we cleaned the slide well enough in the sink so nothing would get in the alcohol. Lastly we dried the slide with Kim wipes and return the slide back to the original spot where it was taken and then we throw away the Kim wipes.

Letter E Slide:

To make the letter E slide we had to first grab a slide, then we had to cut out a word that was not to small but not to big but in normal size print and once as we found a word that was normal size print and had the letter E in it we had to then put one drop of water on the word and put the cover-slip on top of the word.

Thread Slide:

To make the thread slide first we had to grab a slide, then we had to cut two strings about a inch long and they could not be the same color. After you have the two one inch long different color threads we had to put those threads on the slide but we had to put them in an X or make them cross. After doing that we had to put two drops of water on the slide then cover it up with the cover-slip.

Pond Water Slide:

To make the pond water slide we had to first grab a slide then we had to put a drop of pond water on the slide and cover it up with the coverslip. In the pond water specimen we found rotifers and we looked at a planarian.

Results & Observations:

In the prepared slide we looked at the liver. When we looked at the liver on low magnification it looked light pink with with a small purple accent to outline the different looking specimens inside and then inside the specimens it had dots. On high magnification we observed that the specimen had pink ovals and purple dots inside the pink.

The letter E slide had many significant features that included that we saw that when you look at the letter E we investigated that the letter E is turned upside and is backwards. In the letter E slide that we looked at when we went into low magnification we saw that the letter E was surrounded in multiple colors because when we picked up the word, the word was on green newspaper making the slide more colorful when we looked at it on the microscope. Also in the letter E slide we could see the neighboring letters not just the letter E.

The thread slide also had many significant features that included when we went to middle magnification and we moved the fine adjustment knobs we found out that neither of the threads can be focused in at the same time so since we used a blue and a red thread only one of the threads were able to be seen clearly like it was jumping out at us while the other thread was all blurry but when we used the fine adjustment knobs we would see that the other thread got a lot more clear to see and the other thread that was clear to see was now all blurry.

In the pond water experiment we found four different specimens. The first specimen was the rotifer. Rotifers are microscopic aquatic animals of the phylum Rotifera. Rotifers can be found in many freshwater environments and in moist soil, where they inhabit the thin films of water that are formed around soil particles. The habitat of rotifers may include still water environments, such as lake bottoms, as well as flowing water environments, such as rivers or streams.

The second specimen was the planarian, any of several free-living (nonparasitic) worms. The planarian is the simplest of all flatworms. Most planaria are found in freshwater or salt-water, but a few live in moist soils on land.

The third specimen that we found was paramecium, like all protists, are single-celled organisms. Cells are the building blocks for all life forms. "Single-celled" means that a paramecium has only one cell for its entire body. Most plants and animals have more cells than you can count. The inside of a paramecium is a jelly-like fluid called protoplasm. Bits of food and other materials float around in the protoplasm.

Paramecium are so tiny that you need a microscope to see them. They live in water, including lakes, ponds, streams, rivers, and puddles. Some can even live in the bodies of animals or in moist soil.

The fourth specimen that we saw was the peranema. A peranema is a genus of free-living flagellate protists, with more than 20 accepted species, varying in size between 8 and 200 micrometers. They are found in freshwater lakes, ponds and ditches, and are often abundant at the bottom of stagnant pools rich in decaying organic material.

Analysis & Discussion:

There are many things that make up the microscope and they are the parts f the microscope and those are the occular(eyepiece), body tube(barrel), rotating nosepiece, objectives, arm, stage, stage clips, disc diapragm, coarse adjustent knob, fine adjustment knob, light source, and the base. The basic rules for a microscope are, always carry the microscope using both hands for support, keep the microscope away from the edge of the table; do not stack the scope on books, ect., only use official lens paper when cleaning the eyepiece and objective lenses, use caution when using high power to make sure the slide does not get cracked as you adjust, always turn off the light before unplugging the scope, and always use a coverslip when making wet-mount slides, always remove your slide and clean it when you are finished (tap water rinse-alcohol rinse and kim-wipes), always rotate the nosepiece back to the lowest power when beginning and finishing a slide, replace the dust cover and put away the microscope with the arm turned around, any drawing should be done in pencil, with colored pencil embellishments; no pens should be used for drawings. The preparation of a wet mount-slide is; use clean and dry slides and covrslips, watch fro scratches, chips, and smudges, handle the slide by the edges to avoid getting fingerprints and oils on the slide, specimens must be very thin so that light from the lamp will pass through, place the specimen on the center of the slide, add one drop of water or stain over the specimen; don’t over do it; just a dab will do, place the coverslip over the specimen are by placing the coverslip down at a 45 degree angle, air bubbles can be gently tapped out by the end of a pencil eraser, carry the slide to the microscope in use and begin observations at lowest power then rotate to medium power then rotate to high power, use only the fine adjustment knob to do your final focus adjustments, when finished with the slide, take it to the back counter, rinse it with tap water, the swish it in the rubbing alcohol and, finally, dry the slide with a kim-wipe. If there is any excess water or stain on the stage area, it should be cleaned up with lens paper to avoid the possibility of scratching the stage. The pro’s and con’s to wet-mount slides to permanent slides is the permanent slides are permanent even though they are very expensive they are very long lasting making them more capable of going through multiple experiments unlike wet-mount slides were they are cheap because we make them ourselves but we only get to use the at least once in a class period because of the fact that you don’t always get what you want to look at so we would have to make a new wet-mount slide to get the observations that we want to see. In the 1600’s, Anton von Leeuwenhoek discovered the life that lives in a drop of pond water. This discovery opened up a new world for biologists that could be explored only with the aid of magnification. Since Leeuwenhoek’s time, the microscope has become one of the most important tools used by biologists. Much has been learned about the nature of life and about living things with the help of the microscope.

Conclusion: In conclusion Jacob and I learned a lot about microscopes and how to use them and how to make wet-mount slides correctly with just little mistake here and there but at the end of the day I think that we learned a lot about what goes on in pond water like the specimens and the awesome trick of the thread slide on medium power and the colorfulness of the letter E slide that we had.