Choosing the Best Student Microscopes
View PDF | Print View
by: sambrut24
Total views: 5
Word Count: 505
Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 Time: 2:58 AM
If you want to add something that is incredibly interactive and fascinating to your lessons to impress students and to find an interactive way to teach them, there are few things that can be more effective than a student microscope. However the difficulty comes still when choosing the best student microscope for your class and this is a problem when there are so many student microscopes to choose form and generally so many different types of microscope. At the same time there are a lot of different terms phrases and paraphernalia associated with the idea of microscopes and fully understanding the subject can be difficult. So how do you know what to get for your classroom to best help give your students a great and enlightening experience?
Types of Microscope
First of all, note that there are largely two different types of microscope you are likely to use as student microscopes. The first are light microscopes. Light microscopes are the microscopes that most of us are familiar that work by shining light at an object and then looking at this through the lens at the end of the scope. This can range in magnification but only go as high as 1,000X.
Once you want to go higher than 1,000X, that's then when you need an electron microscope. An electron microscope can go higher because it doesn't use the relatively large light waves in order to detect things under the objective, rather it uses electrons – literally firing them at the object to allow you to see things at a subatomic level – of course anything down to the size of an electron can be seen.
Of course you get other types of microscope, and things like the infamous hydrogen colider can be considered miroscopes in that they are being used to find tiny particles that we theorize to exist. However for a student microscope or home school microscope, then either of these will do fine.
Magnification
You then need to make sure that you choose the right kind of magnification for the lessons you intend to teach with your student microscope. Microscopes vary in their magnification and some are more powerful than others. This is denoted by a simple 'X' symbol and a number where the higher the number, the more able you will be to see the objects in view and the smaller the objects you will be able to see. With a 400X microscope you will be able to show bacteria, amoeba and other single celled organisms and the cells of plants and animals – and for the majority of purposes this will be enough.
Lenses
You can get other features for microscopes too depending on what you need them to be able to do. For instance you can opt to have binocular microscopes which have two lenses allowing them to be stereo microscopes (for stereo depth perception) and you get trinocular microscopes which are well suited to group work allowing a third party to look through the lens too – or alternatively you as the teacher.
About the Author
There are many benefits when you find the right student microscopes. Follow the links for more information on the best microscopes.
Rating: Not yet rated
