Earlier, I shared my initial thoughts and impressions of the digital microscope that we recently bought for our little learners. We have been having fun with it so far and after some shots that we took the first time, we have since used it to observe things around the house (and outside) a lot.
This newly acquired device has really influenced my children's curiosity, wanting to put just about anything under it. It is still far from what an optical microscope would show but it is definitely much better than their overused ordinary magnifying glass.
I mentioned in the last post that there is supposedly an OTG (on the go) compatibility with the device and we were able to try that out by downloading an app through Google Play Store and connecting the device to my phone via an OTG cable.
While the first object that we observed under this microscope was a leaf, the children were also curious how other vegetables would look like if they were magnified 1600x.
Here are some items that found their way under our digital microscope. Not sure if they can really be categorized as "microscopy" but since these cannot be easily observed through the naked eye, they just might be.
These are, believe it or not, molds that have grown on french fries sticks. I was appalled to see them when I was cleaning the fridge over the weekend but we still did not let it pass until we see it up close like this.
They kind of looked like neurons here, don't they?
We took the chance to introduce that molds are fungi that grow on organic matter like food when exposed to certain environmental factors like temperature and moisture. They are also great decomposers as we can observe in our compost in the garden.
We had to dispose of the moldy french fries as soon as we were able to have a decent look at them. These can cause health hazards as well.
Here is another fungus that we found inside the fridge. This time, it is edible. :)
In the photo below is the cap of the brown mushroom. I asked them to observe the mushroom with and without the use of the microscope.
This is the gill of the same mushroom. It is rightly called so because it looks like the gill of a fish.
Last for this session are the seeds that we took from the capsicum that we used for cooking that day.
Capsicum seeds are small and looking at them under the microscope made them look so different.
This gave us the chance to review the parts of the seeds and what they do.
These tiny seeds have little baby capsicums plants inside them!
The digital microscope has added a different flavor to our learning these days. It gives us a different perspective of things that we normally see around us. Although the original request was to get a microscope so we can "see the virus", this new toy still taps their curious brains in many different ways.
We love to think of new things to observe. It's good that we can use it with my mobile device that we can bring it practically anywhere too.
All photos are taken via the MScopes App for Digital Microscope, with slight enhancements through Snapseed.
For my full post about the unboxing and initial reaction to this device you may check this out:
| Digital Microscope: Unboxing, First Impressions & Specimen Photos |
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