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Microscopy Practice Alternative

Part 1

1. What are the 4 slides that can be observed in the activity?

The four slides that can be observed in the activity are the letter “e”, an onion root tip, a bacterial capsule, and a cheek smear.

 

2. List the following steps needed to observe the microscope properly?

First you turn on the microscope, then you set the rheostat at 10, open the spring loaded clip and place desired slide, then you turn the ocular housing to the 4x lens, move specimen until it is in the center of the light, move the coarse focus to as high is it goes, adjust oculars until two circles of light merge into one,  then while in 4x move coarse focus down until specimen is in view, use the fine focus to fine tune the image, adjust the light diaphragm and you can properly view the microscope.

 

3. What does the Iris Diaphragm control?

The iris diaphragm controls how much light enters the lens, by adjusting the size of the aperture.

 

4. Which is the scanning lens?

The 4x lens is the scanning lens.

 

5. How do you adjust your focus?

To adjust focus, you can move the coarse adjustment nob while on the scanning lens, you rotate the nob slowly until the specimen come into view. Then you can fine tune the focus with the fine adjustment nob, you do this by rotating the nob until it is as clear as possible.

 

6. View the slide labeled “cheek smear”. Sketch the image at Scanning, Low and High Power. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7. Take a screen shot on high power the CELL MEMBRANE, CYTOPLASM, and NUCLEUS. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Part 2

8. How do the cells vary from one picture to the next (how are they different)?

The majority of the cheek cell pictures are very similar, however, one key difference is the quantity of cells in the image. In some photos there is only one cell, whereas, in others there are a lot of them. Although, overall the cheek cells look alike from photo to photo.

 

9. The mouth is the first site of chemical digestion in a human. Your saliva starts the process of breaking down the food you eat. Keeping this in mind, what organelle do you think would be the most numerous inside the cells of your mouth? (Hint: what organelle is responsible for breaking things down and digesting.)

I think the organelle that would be most abundant in cheek cells is the lysosome. Lysosomes function to remove waste with the help of digestive enzymes. Since saliva starts the process of breaking down the food we eat, lysosomes are needed to aid in this process.

 

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