Mung Bean Close Ups

Today we did more measurements on our mung bean plants- Activity 1 in the Flowering Plants Science in a Nutshell Kit from Delta Education. The kids have been making observations using their hand lenses and today E10 pulled out his pocket microscope and had a good look at the plant parts and the sofa and his clothing...Then came the request to use the microscope.

Well who am I to stop good science?? After we took measurements we headed on down to the computers and the Intel Play QX3 Digital Microscope. The kids first watched me go through the process of looking at the plant under 10x, 60x, then 200x. Then they took over trying to find each part under certain magnification. The older the kid, the higher they were responsible for. As you magnify more, the field of view gets smaller so this can be frustrating for smaller children. We took still pictures of each image so we could share with them you. The kids did a great job!

Roots 10x

Roots 60x- they were in a big ball so we were disappointed not to see root hairs

Roots 200x

Stem 10x- oh and part of a root

Stem 60x

Stem 200x

Leaves 10x- it was cool to notice the new leaves coming out

Leaves 60x- check out the new growth now!

Leaves 200x- this right where the two join the stem and there is new growth. Compare the image with the first one. This is right down near the red part on the first image.

I'll say it again. The QX3 totally rocks!! This was largely student driven which is always cool. As a science mom I'm quick to say yes to stuff like this. I mean that's the fun, right? I bet we'll be getting more and more use out of the digital microscope. You can read more about this microscope in an earlier post.