If you have access to a microscope, then this lab is fun and easy to do. If you’re in the market for a microscope, you can view our microscope recommendations here. If you’ve got a microscope but just haven’t used it for awhile (or never), then look over the experiments here first to get you started. Cloth fibers, wool, human hair, salt, and sugar all look really different under a microscope. It’s especially fun to mix up salt and sugar first, and then look at it under the scope to see if you can tell the difference.
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- Pull fibers from a fabric. If it’s super-curly, use a bit of tape at either end, stretching it along the length of the slide. Keep the tape near the ends so it doesn’t come into your field of view when you look through the microscope
- Lower the stage to the lowest setting and rotate the nose piece to the lowest magnification power.
- Place the slide on the stage in your clips.
- Focus the hair by looking through the eyepiece and slowly turning the coarse adjustment knob. When you’re close to focus, switch to the fine adjustment knob until it pops into sharp view.
- When you’re done, lower the stage all the way and insert a new slide… and repeat.
- Find at least six things to look at from six different fabrics. Try cotton, wool, synthetic, nylon, rayon, etc.
After viewing the fiber specimens, you can bring them close to a lit candle and adult help for a flame test. Different fibers burn differently: some will continue to glow, smoke, or burn after taken from the flame, some fibers burn more quickly than others. Some fibers curl, others melt, and some don’t even catch fire at all.
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Unfortunately, if you want a good microscope that is going to last through high school and college, it’s an investment. Look in Unit 16 under Microscope Materials for my recommended scopes.
do you khow any cheaper realy good microscopes because we thing 112$ for the kids microscope is kina expensive