studying water microbes with a laser pointer

We recently bought a subscription to The Happy Scientist, and have been greatly enjoying the scientific experiments on video.  We did one this week that I think is really out of this world!  Actually, it is in this world- in the microscopic world.

Here is a video of our following the laser microscope experiment:




We did see microbes, but overall, had difficulty in seeing enough detail to tell apart cillates, protists, and amoebas, etc.  We'll make some changes to see if we can improve our results.

As a photographer, the idea of the drop of water acting as lens, revealing the contents inside itself at about 1,000X  (according to Arbor Scientific) is just amazing!  I'm a kid in a candy store!!


I linked this post up to Learning All The Time's Favorite Resource blog hop- check out other great discoveries!