1.Photos/Sketches:
Photos:
Human cheek cell/Red onion cell Diagram:
a.The animal cell looks like a fried egg and is very small, since we used cheek cells, bits of food debris was also visible. The cell structures that were visible were the cell wall and the nucleus because the cell wall was a thin outline around the circular cell and the nucleus was the middle circle of the cell which looked like a fried egg.
b.Plant cells look like translucent rectangles. The cell wall and cell membrane were very visible because the rectangle outline was very clearly outlined.
2.You can tell a plant cell from an animal cell under a microscope by the cell wall, a plant cell has a very distinct cell wall and each cell wall is roughly the same, an animal cell, cell wall has varied shapes and sizes due to the lack of rigid cell wall. Also plant cells have a very distinct rectangular shape and an animal cell looks like a fried egg but also it looks like a circular object.
3.We stained the animal cell with methylene blue and not the plant cell because, it stains animal cells dark blue which makes organelles such as the cell wall and the nucleus more visible since the animal cells and organelles are so small. Methylene blue also is used to tell wether cells are dead or alive. We did not use it on plant cells because the cell/organelles are already very visible and methylene blue is used to make cells/organelles stand out.
4.Reflection: When doing this lab we learned basic science skills like preparing slides and using a microscope like using the focus adjustment knobs on low, medium and high power to be able to see the cell organelles clearly and closely. We also learned that we have to use methylene blue on animal cells in order to see the organelles clearly. We learned how to look at and examine cells through a microscope like telling weather its a cell or an air bubble/dust. And finally we learned how to draw a diagram that is labeled of both a plant and animal cell and we also found the magnification we were looking through.
Since we used methylene blue to see the animal cell and its organelles more clearly is there another compound that will make both animal and plant cells very visible?
Since we used cheek cells as animal cells is their any other cells we could have used as animal cells?
Is methylene blue necessary to use if you have a more expensive/high power microscope?
What is the difference from using dead or alive cells?