Digital Microscope Alissa Galik And Rhiannon Slam

Wood Chip

Dandelion

Berries

Dead Flower

Grass

Pinecone

Weed

Dead Leaf

Earring

Ring

Computer Chip

Fabric

Task 1. List or items gathered: Blue berry Shell USB Port from a computer Dead Flower Live Grass Unstained wood chip Green Leaves Dandelion Pinecone Silver ring Yellow diamond earring Everyday fabrics (jeans and shirts) Some items we would have liked to see under the microscope but couldn’t bring to lab were: a tree, concrete, pond water, car paint, mud, cat fur, and other fabric other than the ones we are wearing, for example silk or taffeta. Task 2. The biggest thing that was surprising was the different fabrics. The grains on jeans are easily visible but on some tops, you can’t really see what they look like. I was also surprised with how close the microscope got. We looked at all of our items under the microscope, and found that the items that we thought would be pretty or interesting, weren’t that interesting or cool looking, and the items that don’t look that interesting at regular magnification were really interesting under the microscope. The items that were gathered from nature seemed to have the most interesting looking magnification images. In some of the pictures we took, you can really see the grains in also. That is where all the plants nutrients come from. Start the lesson by explaining to them the basic parts of a plant, like for a flower and other smaller plants(roots, stem, bulb), for a tree (roots, trunk, leaves), for a pinecone (comes from a tree it gets its nutrients from the little veins that are visible). Show them were each of the little veins are that give the plant life and make sure they see that they all look different, not one plant is the same. Talk to them about the different things that plants need to help keep them alive (water, sun, air, nutrients in the soil). Then give them a worksheet with a couple of the pictures on it and ask them to show where that plant gets its nutrients. Meant for 3 rd graders. Digital microscopes help with this because for most things in nature, it is hard to see where the plants little veins are on the different kinds of plants. The microscope allows them to see it up close and be able to understand it better. Task 3 Categories: We broke up the items into categories of natural and non-natural or manmade items. This was an easy decision since most of everything we gathered was either directly from outside or we borrowed from the class collection. The items we borrowed from the class collection that were not natural were things like a computer chip Photosynthesis, Flower, Leaf, Root, Stem, Nutrients, Veins, Trunk, Microscopic, Magnification, Ecosystem Websites: *has a worksheet that can be printed out for labeling *has some vocabulary words *gives the students a wonderful game to play to see if they can get a plant to grow to as tall as possible *gives a really great video showing how a seed pops out of a plant