Module 1: How We See Microbes - Microscopy Practice
As a microbiology major, I spend a lot of time in the Microbio building! Right now, I'm taking the lab for majors, and I'm really enjoying it so far. I even got this stylish green lab coat to wear!
Last week, I stopped by to see Dr. Oli, as part of our "field trip" for our Microbes Without Borders course. We took a look at a water sample from a hey influsion under a microscope. While I did a similar experiment earlier that week in my microbio lab, I wasn't able to find anything too exciting from my water sample then. I had taken a sample from my roommate Justine's pet turtle tank. I thought we would see a lot of cool microbes from the turtle tank, but Justine actually installed a water filter into her tank recently. It must be working really well, because all I got to see from that sample was a few cool looking air bubbles.
I had much better luck with Dr. Oli and our hey infusion sample. Here are some sketches of a few of the microbes that we found! Some of these little guys were swimming around pretty quickly, while others were anchored to the pond scum.
Since we were only using the 10x lens, we didn't see any bacteria (they would still be too small to see!), but I think it have been cool to zoom in more and out what kind of bacteria were also living in the pond water. I bet there are tons of bacteria here for these microbes we did see to feed on!
Nevertheless, all of these little microbes were all very interesing to see! Most of my experince in microscopy has been with cancer cell lines, so it was very cool to see all the movement in this little droplet of water. I love seeing these tiny worlds through the lens of the microscope!
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