Department of Education

Division of Leyte
ALANGALANG NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
Senior High School Department
Alangalang, Leyte

NAME: _________________________________________ SECTION: ___________________

ACTIVITY 1: MICROSCOPY

OBJECTIVES
• To practice using the microscope.
• To know the basic microscope operation such as focusing and depth of focus.

INTRODUCTION

The first lens used to magnify things was developed in the first century A.D. These were pieces
of glass shaped in a convex form – thicker in the middle and tapering off to the sides – and were the first
magnifying glasses that could increase the image of an object about 10 – 20 X. The creation of glass lenses
improved dramatically at the end of the 16th century, vastly improving the magnifying power. By 1609,
Galileo Galilei refined the methods of lens making in an effort to view objects in the sky.

About half a century later, the Dutchman Anton van Leeuwenhoek further improved the art
opens making, allowing him to view objects in pond water that had never been viewed by humans–
microorganisms – life at a tiny level. At the same time, an English physicist named Robert Hooke
improved the technology of van Leeuwenhoek and confirmed the existence of tiny organisms in pond
water. He also famously examined a piece of cork and observed tiny boxes arranged in such a way that
they looked like the “cells” (rooms) in a monastery if you removed the roof and looked in from above.
Today the best compound light microscopes are able to magnify objects up to 2,500X without losing
their resolution – the sharpness of the image itself.

MATERIALS
• Compound Microscope • Lower case letter “e” from newspaper
• Microscope slide • Scissors
• Clover slip • Colored threads

PROCEDURE

FOCUSING: Letter “e”

1. Obtain one lower case letter e from the newspaper and place it on a clean microscope
slide.
2. Cover it with a cover slip.
3. Place the slide on the stage of the microscope in the right side up position. It looks like
this:

4. With the scanning power objective lens in place, use the coarse adjustment knob to bring
the newsprint into view.
5. While focusing on the letter, move the slide to the left.
6. Which way does the letter seem to move?
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 7. Now move the slide up (away from you). Which way does the letter seem to move this
time?
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8. Draw what you see in the microscope under scanning, and low powers below.
9. Now adjust the nosepiece so that you are using high power. Only use the fine adjustment
to focus the letter from now on. Draw what you see under high power.

Letter e under SCANNING Letter e under LOW Letter e under HIGH

POWER POWER OBJECTIVE POWER OBJECTIVE

GUIDE QUESTIONS

1. Compare what you saw under low power to the high power. Explain your observations.
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2. How does the letter look different under the microscope what when looking at it normally (not just
bigger… what else do you notice?)
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3. What conclusions can you write regarding the way object appear under the microscope?
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DEPTH OF FOCUS

All the objects you have looked at so far under the microscope have been flat or two dimensional.
You can also learn how to see thickness of an object under a microscope. This is called depth of view. It
is not too complicated but you will have to be very careful and observant when using the fine focus
adjustment.
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 1. Place the “3 colored threads” slide on the stage.
2. Focus onto the slide from scanning to low power. As you slowly move the FINE adjustment you
should see one of the threads come into focus and then move out of focus. As you continue to
turn the knob, another thread will focus in and then out.
3. If you were focusing UP as you should have, the first thread to come clear would be on the
bottom, the next thread to come into focus would be the middle, and the last thread to focus
would be on top.
4. What is the order of the threads on your slide? Put your answer on the item on the guide
question.

GUIDE QUESTIONS

1. You completed the “3 Colored Threads” depth of view activity with your group. Your threads were
layered in what order?

TOP color: ___________ Middle Color: ___________ Bottom Color: _____________

2. What conclusions can you write regarding the way object appear under the microscope?
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Determining Total Magnification

1. Locate the numbers on the eyepiece and the low power objective and fill in the blanks below.

Eyepiece magnification __________ X Objective magnification ______________

= Total Magnification _____________

2. Do the same for the high power objective.

Eyepiece magnification __________ X Objective magnification ______________

= Total Magnification _____________

3. Write out the rule for determining total magnification of a compound microscope:
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4. Remove the slide and clean it up. Turn off the microscope and wind up the wire so it
resembles its original position. Place the low power objective in place and lower the body
tube. Cover the scope with the dust cover. Place the scope back in its original space in the
cabinet.

CONCLUSION QUESTIONS:
1. State TWO procedures that should be used to properly handle a light microscope.
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 2. Explain why the light microscope is also called the compound microscope.
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3. Images observed under the light microscope are reversed and inverted. Explain what this means.
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4. Explain why the specimen must be centered in the field of view on low power before going to high
power.
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5. A microscope has a 20 X ocular (eyepiece) and two objectives of 10 X and 43 X respectively.

a) Calculate the low power magnification of this microscope. Show your formula
and all work.
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b) Calculate the high power magnification of this microscope. Show your formula
and all work.
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6. In three steps using complete sentences, describe how to make a proper wet mount of the letter e.
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7. Describe the changes in the field of view and the amount of available light when going from low to
high power using the compound microscope.
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8. Explain what the microscope user may have to do to combat the problems incurred in
question # 7.
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