Mircoscopes!!!

For the past couple of days, we've been experimenting with microscopes.What we've put on the slides to look at were blood (donaited by David), an onion skin, a rat's brain, a piece of paper, strans of our own hair, pond water and cheek cells. We put all these products on a slide with a cover over them and put it under the scope. It was amazing how you can see the individual cells in the blood. Just like little red circles. What we saw in our group in the pond water, were little organisms. They were moving and everything. It was amazing how these little, living things are what we live from. When you look a paper from a human's eye, it looks like, well, paper, but under the scope, it looks like crystals. It was weird, but interesting. I really liked this week and what we did.

ITS SCIENCE PEOPLE!

Our lab that we did was amazing. We had a cylinder about 3/4 of water. We added idoine in it until it was a good looking brown. What we were trying to do was look for glucose. The water with idoine didn't have any, but when we tested the glucose/starch, of course the strip changed colors. We put the glucose/starch in a thin baggy. The baggy represented the membrane of a cell. We put the baggy in the water and let it sit for about 30 minutes when we notice some changes within the baggy. The glucose/starch was clear, but after a while, a black substance started to appear on the bottom. After leaving it for a day, the baggy turned a gray-ish color with more black stuff on the bottom. The baggy was a little bit more puffy than it was. We made a conclusion that the glucose from the bag had left and the idoine from the water came in. The idoine was obsorbed by the starch, and the glucose levels raised in the water. This is kind of what happends with cells. The membrane of the cells can let what ever it wants in, or out.

Membrane Structure

So, last week we made a model of a fluid mosaic. To Caryn, it looked like a piece of pie. But in it, we have proteins, lipids. carbohydrate chain and a protein channel. It helped me understand the structure more. The carbohydrate chain helps identify other cells. Thats the long looking red thing in our drawing. I really like this activity.