Observing Cells Lab

What do animal cells look like under the microscope? What cell structures are visible?

At 100x, nuclei should be visible in human cheek cells, but no other organelles. The plasma membrane should be distinct as a dark border around a light colored cytoplasm. When having the magnification 100X we were only able to see the nucleus, cell membrane and the cytoplasm. The cells themselves should appear scale-like and irregular in circle shape.


What do plant cells look like under the microscope? What cell structures are visible?

Plant cells look like  the skin patterns on the crocodile. Although it’s only  cell membrane, cytoplasm and vacuole  are visible while using a 100X magnification.

onion skin cell


How can you tell plant cells and animal cells apart (if you only see them under the microscope)?

While cell membranes might be around every cell, cell walls made of cellulose are only found around plant cells. Plant cells have a very large central vacuole. While animal cells have several and they are much smaller. Plant cells have organelles called chloroplasts which contains chlorophyll and animal cells do not.
We used methylene blue on the animal cell. Why was it important to treat animal cells with this compound?
Why didn’t we use it on the plant cells? 

The reason why we used methylene blue on the animal cell is  to stain it and make it  easier to see the cell structures under the microscope. Unless, it will much difficult  to tell the difference between the air bubbles and the  cheek cells.
Why didn’t we use it on the plant cells? Nevertheless,  I think the reason why we didn’t use the colour with the plant cells is that the onion skin plant cells were already purple that made the cells purple, and we could tell apart the cells  from the air bubbles. Adding the solution was unnecessary, since we could already distinguish the cells in the plants, since they were naturally purple.
Reflection:
What did you learn while doing this lab? 

Though this observation, I learned about  using  a microscope and  the visual components that are with cells and how to differenciate them. Moreover, I know the important organelles that can be seen are the cell wall (for the plant cells), the cell membrane, the nucleus, and the cytoplasm. I have learned that onion skin cells (plant cells) are rectangular and are always with other plant cells and cheek cells (animal cells) are circular and are secluded from each other, and that the smaller organelles cannot be seen with just our school microscope.
What questions arose while doing this lab? What are you curious about?

During the lab, I was wondering about the fact if  the largest organelles in the cell and also due to the dye which brought them out. In addition to this, I was also curious about how can we get further investigated in the animal and plants cell by microscope.

 

 

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