Microscopes and Magnification

S5L3 Students will diagram and label parts of various cells (plant, animal, single-celled, multi-celled).    
a. Use magnifiers such as microscopes or hand lenses to observe cells and their structure.  
b. Identify parts of a plant cell (membrane, wall, cytoplasm, nucleus, chloroplasts) and of an animal cell (membrane, cytoplasm, and nucleus) and determine the function of the parts.  
c. Explain how cells in multi-celled organisms are similar and different in structure and function to single-celled organisms.    

Microscopes and Magnifiers

Microscopes are useful for looking closer at very tiny things. For an interactive tour of how to use a microscope click here. If you really enjoy looking at microscopic images under a microscope you might try the virtual microscope from Discovery Education.

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Improvements in Health and Wealth

The reason I included this video was because it was connected to the paragraph to the right. It may be a bit complicated for most 10 year old kids to fully understand, but I think it does a great job charting the progress that has been made in health over the past 200 years. It is also very interesting to see how wealth has allowed countries to improve in health. Is it all because of microscopes? Absolutely not, but have microscopes played a large role in developing vaccines, finding medicines and helping us understand how diseases work? Certainly!

History of Cell Magnification

Robert Hooke is credited with being the first person to discover cells. He was looking at small piece of cork under a microscope lens and noticed "pores" or "cells" in it. Since that day in 1665 scientists have been trying to learn more about cells and thus more about all living things.

A few years later in 1674 Anton van Leeuwenhoek built a simple microscope and became the first person to describe bacteria. He also  began looking at blood, yeast and even insects under  a microscope. 

Now scientists can not only look at cells, but they can also see the parts inside of each cell and are able to determine the function of each part. Why would anyone need or want to know this? Mostly, the research is done to help doctors and health care professionals increase the amount of help they can provide to patients. In the United States in 1900, the average person lived to be 47 years old. In 1940 the average person in the U.S. lived to be 63 year old. Today in the U.S. the average person lives to be 77 years old. Why the difference? Vaccinations have been created and great advances have been made in the world of medicine. Thank you Mr. Microscope!