Biology Recap 1/10, 1/11, 1/12

In the double block this week, we used microscopes to look at two different types of cells.  We used Compound Light Microscope to view Elodea (Plant) cells, and Human Cheek (Animal) cells.  There is a particular way to use the microscope.  We received the microscopes with the stage lowered, and the scan objective selected. You carried the microscopes back to your seats with one hand on the bottom, and one hand on the arm directly above the coarse/fine adjustment knob.

There are two knobs to use, and three different objectives that we use in Biology.  We turned our microscopes on and initially made our wet slide of Elodea.  The slide was placed on the stage, and on scanning power (which is Red on our microscopes, 40x magnification) we use the coarse adjustment knob.  Once this was focused, we were able to switch to low power (yellow on our microscopes, 100x magnification) and again use the coarse adjustment knob to again focus our Elodea.  Finally, we switched to the high power objective (blue on our microscope, 400x magnification) and viewed the Elodea.  On high power, we can only use the fine adjustment (small/inner knob).

The process was then repeated with the cheek cell, swabbing the inner cheek with a toothpick to make our wet mount slide, and using the Methylene Blue to stain the cells to see under the microscope.

During the single block period, we focused on review for our midterms.  The midterms are as follows:

A Block- 1/17

B Block-1/18

E Block- 1/19

F, G Blocks- 1/20

A sheet was distributed with the following terms on it, which review what we’ve covered so far this year in Introductory Biology. 

You are allowed 2 4×6 inch index cards to use on the midterm.