Microscopy Forum

 I have a 10 year old son and he got a cheap microscope for xmas and he's very keen to use it.  

 It came with some slides and he finds looking at them exciting but I, frankly, find them disappointing.

 Seems to me he'd be better off looking at something like pond life.  I'd find it more interesting.

 His scope was made by 'Penline Australia' and is sold by the Australian Post Office (i.e. a reputable but non-scientific organisation – don't ask me what they're doing selling microscopes). 

 It has three stages of magnification: 100x, 400x, 900x.

I've been advised that such scopes are total rubbish and I should get him something else as soon as possible before it destroys his enthusiasm.

So I've googled and I'm here asking:

 what, if anything, can best be done with this scope?

 would he be better off with a digital usb/pc scope or are they rubbish, too?

Our/my special interest is biological, biology, structure of living things.

:)

p.s. I haven't been on a forum like this before. How does it work? I see no  mention of 'subscribing' to a thread. Will I get an email notifying of responses to this post? Or must I keep returning to this page to check?

As a child, I had a hard time making my own slides and observing pond life. Even though I had some slides that had well in them, I was never able to find any microbes in any of the pond water I attempted to collect. That being said, I say you are better off getting pre-made slides with microbes in them. He'll actually be able to see something meaningful in those.

I wouldn't worry too much about the toy microscope/versus "real" microscope thing. Until he actually uses a "real" microscope, your son will never know what he is missing. The important thing in my mind is that he is enjoying himself looking at anything under the scope. Also, keep in mind that it isn't the microscope itself that will inspire your son. It is what he is going to see under the microscope that is inspiring. I would advocate buying a large collection of pre-prepared slides. I bought a set of 100 samples from AmScope for roughly $50 and I have stuff ranging from plant stems to bee eyes to rabit blood smears. My kids and I have been having a blast looking at them so far. 

Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but I think that you lose some of the intimacy with the sample and what you are doing when you use a digital microscope. For that reason, I'd stay away from them when introducing microscopy to a child. But then again I'm also one of those weirdos that doesn't believe is text messaging, face book, email,…

I doubt that I really answered your questions, but I hope that I helped you out somehow.

Peter said

Hi abrogard,

Pond water can be both interesting and a challenge.  If the water looks clean and clear then it probably is with little life to see, if it's scummy and or murky there's a good chance of some interesting organisms.  Take a jar of your chosen water home ( include a little matter from the bottom), place a small drop on a clean slide and add a clean cover slip and see what can be observed with the microscope.  Do not be too disappointed if you cannot find much on your first viewing of a sample, place the open jar on a window sill and you will probably find the population of microbes will develop over the next few days to weeks.  Finding pond organisms is a combination of luck and skill developed through experience.

Good luck.

Peter.

The only thing I would add is that if you are attempting to keep things in your jar alive longer than a week or so, you might need to add some nutrients to the system. A few drops of plant fertilizer and/or some fish food would probably do a great job.

Maintaining and observing a little ecosystem of pond water and mud could turn into quite a nice project. You could do daily observations from a couple of spots in the jar. Mud from the bottom might have different microbes than water collected next to whatever algae might start to grow a little further up the water column and that could be different from stuff you may (or may not see) in the top or more open area of the jar. I'm getting excited about doing this with my own children just thinking about it!