Student Resource 4.5 Lab: Seeing Your Own Skin Cells Student Name:_______________________________________________________ Date:___________ Directions: Follow the steps below to prepare a sample of your own skin cells to look at under the microscope. Be sure to wear your gloves to avoid getting fingerprints on your sample. Clean the underside of your wrist with one of the moist towelettes and let it dry. Press a 1-inch piece of tape against the cleaned skin on your wrist. Hold the tape by its edge and hold it up to the light. What can you see? Put the tape sticky side down on a microscope slide. Using a tweezers, lift a corner of the tape and place a small drop of methylene blue stain where the tape meets the slide. You should see the stain move across the underside of the tape, staining your skin cells. Make sure you have the lowest power lens in place over the microscope stage, and place the slide on the stage under the lens. Look through the eyepiece as you focus the microscope, starting with the coarse (usually larger) knob first. You may need to slowly move the slide around to find your cells. They will look like blobs or spots with a blue hue. Use the fine-focus (usually smaller) knob to focus on some cells once you have found them. If your lowest magnification lens isn’t 10X, move to a 10X lens and refocus using the fine-focus knob. Look closely at the Can you see individual cells? Draw a picture of what you see. Note what is a cell and a nucleus. Also note parts are darkest blue and which are lightest.
Student Resource 4.5 Lab: Seeing Your Own Skin Cells Student Name:_______________________________________________________ Date:___________ Directions: Follow the steps below to prepare a sample of your own skin cells to look at under the microscope. Be sure to wear your gloves to avoid getting fingerprints on your sample. Clean the underside of your wrist with one of the moist towelettes and let it dry. Press a 1-inch piece of tape against the cleaned skin on your wrist. Hold the tape by its edge and hold it up to the light. What can you see? Put the tape sticky side down on a microscope slide. Using a tweezers, lift a corner of the tape and place a small drop of methylene blue stain where the tape meets the slide. You should see the stain move across the underside of the tape, staining your skin cells. Make sure you have the lowest power lens in place over the microscope stage, and place the slide on the stage under the lens. Look through the eyepiece as you focus the microscope, starting with the coarse (usually larger) knob first. You may need to slowly move the slide around to find your cells. They will look like blobs or spots with a blue hue. Use the fine-focus (usually smaller) knob to focus on some cells once you have found them. If your lowest magnification lens isn’t 10X, move to a 10X lens and refocus using the fine-focus knob. Look closely at the Can you see individual cells? Draw a picture of what you see. Note what is a cell and a nucleus. Also note parts are darkest blue and which are lightest.
a_pi_lesson4_studentresource_113015.docx