Laboratory Notes for BIO 1003

© 30 August 1999, John H. Wahlert & Mary Jean Holland

USE OF THE MICROSCOPE

Materials

• Compound microscopes with 3 objectives (1 per student)

• microscope slides
• cover slips

• letter e
• bolting silk

• onion

• Lugol's iodine (30 ml Wheaton dropper bottle)
• methylene blue (30 ml Wheaton dropper bottle)
• isotonic saline solution for cheek and onion cells (30 ml Wheaton dropper bottle)

• transparent 4 cm ruler pieces
• sterile sticks for collecting cheek cells (24)
• 6 scalpels for cutting and peeling onion skin
• lens tissue
• plastic droppers

Themes

• Proper handling of microscopes to avoid damage.
• Strategies for optimizing observation.
• Staining to make structures visible and differentiate cell from background.
• Visible structures in eukaryotic cells.
• Estimating the dimensions of microscopic objects.
• Cell theory: Matthias Schleiden (plants: 1838) and Theodor Schwann (animals: 1839): all living things are made up of cells.
• Microscope skills will be needed in many future lab exercises.

Web Resources

• Cell theory (History of the Microscope web site)

Return to Microscope lab or Index.