Another famous scientist named Robert Hooke observed living thing such as flowers, insects, cork, etc. In 1665 he finally published a book of drawings filled with his observations through the light microscope.
This is the picture of the plant cells. A plant cell has a cell wall, vacuole, chloroplast, nucleus, cytoplasm and cell membrane.
Risk assessment
Method
Before we did the actual experiment, the teacher showed us how to use the microscope. It helped me with my real experiment because I knew what to do.
- I set up all the apparatus on the table.
- I cut a small piece of onionskin from the onion using a forceps and I placed it on the slide. Then I put a drop of iodine on top of the onionskin and then I left it four minutes so that the onionskin will absorb the iodine.
- After four minutes I put the cover slip gently on top of the onionskin. Then I put a droplet of water on one side of the cover slip. It forced the iodine, which was not absorbed by the onion to come out, and I used a piece of dry paper to suck the iodine.
- I placed the slide under the microscope carefully to look at the onion cell until I could see a clear image of the cells. I used all three lenses 1. X4, 2. X10 3.X40. I was drawing the images on a piece of paper. I repeated this experiment twice. I drew two images for each lens.
Analysis of results
Picture from the internet.
By looking at my results and the pictures of the onion cell that I downloaded from the internet I can see that my results are accurate. Both cells are similar in structure.
I can see the cells clearly from looking at the results. The cell has a cell wall and a cell membrane and also a nucleus. My results are correct because the cell doesn’t have air bubbles and they have a clear pattern.
Conclusion
When I compared my results with the pictures from the Internet, I can conclude that my results were correct and they had a regular pattern.
Evaluation
Every time I changed the magnification I could see the image of the cell more clearly and in more detail. When I first saw the cell with 10X4 magnification I could only see cell wall and a nucleus but when I changed the magnification to 10X10 I could see a better and clearer picture. I first had some problems with preparing a slid for the experiment. In order to make this experiment accurate as possible I practiced more for it so when I do the actual experiment I don’t get any errors in my results. I compared my results with the picture taken from the Internet, I found no errors or anomalies in my results, which means that my experiment went well.
My strength in this was that I could work really well with scientific equipment and obtain the best possible results.
I didn’t have many weaknesses in this experiment but there was one weakness, which I noticed was preparing the slides correctly for the experiment but it didn’t really affect my results, that’s why my result were accurate.
To improve my results I could have better results if I had used a bigger magnification to obtain the results, also if I could have researched more on plant cells. If I had better equipment then I had for the experiment then it would give me more accurate results. Still I obtained best possible results in the time given.
Overall my experiment was useful for me because I learned many things from it and it gave me more knowledge about the scientific work. From this experiment I learned how to observe biological material with a microscope and how to prepare the slides.