Microscopy Practical (Onion Cells)

1. Separate out the onion into layers. Using tweezers, peel off a thin sheet of epidermal tissue
from the inside of one of the layers and trim to size.

2. Put a drop of water on the middle of the slide. Place your piece of onion on top of the
droplet using tweezers. Add a drop of iodine solution to stain it.

3. Place a coverslip over the sample. Hold it upright next to the droplet and lower it slowly. Try
to avoid air bubbles. Dab excess liquid from the edges using a piece of tissue paper.

4. Turn the microscope light on. Pull back the clip, put the slide onto the stage and clip into
place. Select the lowest magnification objective lens.

5. Move the stage up so that it is just below the objective lens. Look through the eyepiece and
move it down slowly using the coarse adjustment knob until the image is in focus.
6. Use the fine adjustment knob to bring the image into sharper focus.

7. Increase the magnification by moving to the next highest objective lens and refocus.

8. Draw your observations using a pencil and label them. Your drawing should take up at least
half of the available space with clear, unbroken lines and include no colour and no shading.
Label the main features using straight lines which do not overlap.