What are some everyday things that look cool in a microscope?

Question

My little brother just got a microscope and i was wondering what we could look at in it that would look cool.....any suggestions?

Answer 1

Here are some of my favorites:

1. A little bit of a "dust bunny" - those fluffs of dust and fibers that accumulate in the corners or under the bed. Look at samples from different places in the house. I always show my students some of this from under my desk in the classroom. Since so many people are in and out of the room, we get samples of a zillion different fibers that have fallen off their clothes - bright colors. In the classroom we also see flakes of brightly colored dry whiteboard marker, and lots of skin flakes, of course. And this is making me laugh because when I referred to dust bunnies this spring, our Brazilian exchange student looked alarmed. They don't use that term and she thought I was going to pull a rabbit from under my desk!

2. Scrape a tiny amount of matter from any outdoor surface that has been wet for a while - the bottom of the birdbath, the bottom of a brick, a gutter, ... You'll probably see things moving around in there, but you'll certainly see some cool algae.

3. Find a dead fly and look at its parts individually - a wing, a leg, ...

4. Get some pollen from different flowers and put them in a drop of water. Be sure to place a cover slip. It doesn't matter if the pollen is from flowers in a garden or if the pollen is from wildflowers or weeds. Lots of things should be blooming along the roadsides now.

5. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper on a dry slide and look at the shapes. No water or the salt will dissolve.

6. Look at different people's hair -- different colors, different streaks inside, different thickness, flat versus round, ... Compare it with cat hair or dog hair.

7. Paint a dime-sized spot of clear nail polish on the bottom of a leaf and let it dry. Press a piece of clear tape (Scotch tape) on the dry nail polish and peel it off. The nail polish will stick to the tape and it will have impressions of the cells. Stick the tape on a dry glass slide to look at it. You will see pairs of guard cells with the open stomata or pores between them. These are the pores that let air into and out of the leaf. Look at the cells of the lower epidermis that surround all those oval pairs of guard cells. The epidermis looks exactly like a jigsaw puzzle with all the wavy edges of the cells fitting together.

Do the same thing with a fuzzy leaf. Or just stick some tape straight onto a fuzzy leaf to collect some of the fuzz.

8. Get a tiny piece of moss from a shady spot outside. Put just one of the little plants on a slide to look at the leaflets. Very delicate.

9. Tear a piece of paper and look at the torn edge to see the fibers. Compare different kinds of paper.

10. Look at color pictures from newspapers and magazines to see the color dots that make up the pictures. Then try to see the dots with just your eyes.

Happy summertime!

Answer 2

Ants or insects of any kind for sure.


If you can find some liquid that has tiny partciles floating around in it, try that. You know how a dried coffee stain has a ring around it? Well that's because the tiny coffee grounds that are in there rush to the sides of the spill to allow more water in the coffee to evaporate quicker. You probably can't see this with coffee, but I've seen it happen with some tiny plastic spheres in water. You can actually see the little spheres 'attracted' to the sides of the spill, and the arrange in a hexagonal-close packed structure (picture oranges stacked as close together as possible on a surface). I can't think of what off-hand you could use....perhaps some pepper in water? Just a thought.
But it's really cool if you can get it to work.

Answer 3

I accidently scrapped the skin off one of my finger pads. Accidently stuck it in a fan. It was fascinating under the microscope how the skin reformed to heal itself. Sometimes a little patch of skin would form like a little island in the middle of the wound. Eventualyy they all connected up and my fingerprint came back and everything was ok

Don't do this on purpose because it REALLY hurt....

Look at healthy skin, fingernails and bugs are interesting if it is not too icky for you. Sand is cool, little pieces of wood...gosh just about anything can be fascinating

Answer 4

Different insects are pretty cool! When I was a '' teacher for the day '' in 8th grade, I brought my telescope to school and had everyone look at things like fleas, flys, and all kinds of other bugs!!! Everyone loved it!!! Good Luck!

Answer 5

A scrap of kleenex at 400x

A small bug - any kind, at 40x

Plant leaf at 100x

What powers does the miroscope have? Is it lighted?

Answer 6

Different cloth looks interesting
dirt and whatever might be in it
pond water
mold
insects and their parts
salt crystals, they are cubic
skin
onion skin(the membrane between slices)
flower parts
the colored funny papers

Answer 7

The root of a hair - yank one out of his head and check it out
Skin flakes
Water from a pond or puddle

Answer 8

pond water
there are so much microorganisms and stuff inside it...
what about pieces of fungi?
hair?
bacteria?
yogurts?
drops of liquid...or anything you can find really =D microscopes are sooo fun!

Answer 9

Various fabrics (especially cotton/polyester blends), coins, onion skins, inkjet prints and magazine photos, hairs, ...

Answer 10

skin of an onion... tiny part of a leaf... newspaper... make sure you get enough light through the objects...