Lab #3: Compound Microscopes & Investigating Ciliates 9/7/17
Lab #3: Compound Microscopes & Investigating Ciliates
Purpose: The purpose of this lab is to understand how to use a compound microscope to detect and further analyze different ciliates in various solutions.
Introduction: Before beginning this lab, we learned more about the compound microscope and how its four different magnifications worked. We are able to see very closely with a compound microscope because the image is inverted. There are three different magnifications we must use for the lab: 4x, 10x and 40x, which end up having total magnifications of 40x, 100x and 400x. We also measured the diameter in millimeters and in micrometers of the different magnifications: 4x was 4.25 mm (4,250 µm), 10x was 1.70 mm (1,700 µm) and 40x was 0.425 mm (425 µm). This was calculated by the equation FOV(low) x Mag (low) = FOV (high) x Mag (high).
Materials:
- Compound microscope
- Pipettes
- 6 unknown solutions
- Cleaning lens wipe
- Glass plates
- Plastic cover
- Notebook and pencil
- 6 wells
Procedure:
- Wipe down your lenses of the compound microscope before using it.
- Before placing a glass plate under the microscope, always make sure that the magnification starts at 4x.
- Place a drop of one of the solutions onto a glass plate and place it under the microscope.
- Focus the picture and find any ciliates you see for this solution.
- Once the 4x magnification shows a clear picture, move to the 10x magnification.
- After the 10X lens shows a clear picture, go to 40x.
- After looking at all three lenses, draw what some of the ciliates look like and describe the characteristics you see as you get closer to the image.
- Compare what you see under this compound microscope as to what you saw originally under a simple light microscope.
- After you complete view two different solutions and document your findings (and collect data from your peers on the other four solutions), move to the 100x magnification lens with one of the solutions and place a plastic cover over it. If needed, add a certain solution to slow down the ciliates for a better look at them.
- When finished, clean the glass plates and wells with 10% bleach and throw away the cover slips.
Data & Observations:
- Solution #1: These ciliates appeared to have a tail. This was not seen the last time when using the light microscope. They also attached themselves to algae and the smaller ones are a lot faster than the larger ciliates.
- Solution #2: These ciliates were beautiful and there were a lot more seen this time. There was a pinkish color to these ciliates and it was hard to see them at the end of the slide. Most of the ciliates were in the middle of the lens moving around.
- Solution #3: Theses ciliates were very small and there were about 3-4 of them altogether moving around. There was a greenish color to them on the inside and they swam very quickly. They had a deflated football shape to them and were larger than most other ciliates I saw. I believe this ciliate was a paramecium.
- Below are some interesting pictures of one of the ciliates I found in solution 3.
- Solution #4: I believe this solution also contained a paramecium. It had more of an oval shape and was thinner, but not as thin as a worm. With this particular microscope, I was able to see a lot more of the details of the ciliate in the body and on the outside (the cilia). There was only one ciliate on the entire plate and it was moving very quickly.
- Solution #5: This ciliate was clear, small and moved in a circular motion in loops. It was darker on one side and there were about 50 ciliates across the 4x lens, 10 across the 10x lens, and 2 across the 40x lens.
- Solution #6: This ciliate was long and thin and looked like a worm. There were 2 that fit on the screen and they were darker than the ciliates in the first solution and not as clear. These ciliates moved slowly across the screen.
Conclusion:
In this lab, I was able to understand how to correctly use a compound microscope. This microscope has both similarities and differences to a light microscope. Both of them were able to show the different shapes of the ciliates, but with the light microscope, I could not move the lens to a higher magnification. It was really nice being able to increase the magnification on the ciliates, because this time, I was able to see many more characteristics and details of each ciliate. For Solution #3, I saw a ciliate’s cilia up close on the 400x total magnification lens. It was also nice that I could adjust the light to better see the image of the ciliates, because many of them are clear and changing the light allowed me to see a clearer image. For Solution #3, I also was able to find a really cool paramecium. I went up and showed Dr. Adair and she placed it on the microscope connected to the camera and we were able to further look at the ciliate and find new details about it closer up. It was sometimes hard finding ciliates, especially in Solution #4. I was only able to find one ciliate, but I found interesting characteristics from it when I had a clear image. Overall, this was a very interesting lab that allowed me to learn more about both compound microscopes and ciliates.
