Reflection for science lab lesson

A few weeks ago, my science teacher (ms leong) conducted a lab lesson on "The Inside of Cells-The basic unit of life". We were told to do an experiment but before that, she instructed us to read the instructions first.

This is what we were told to do:
1) Add a drop of dilute iodine solution onto the middle of a clean slide
2) Gently scrape some cells from the inside of our cheek with a clean toothpick
3) Spread the scrapings onto the drop of iodine on the slide. Then throw the toothpick away after use.
4) Place one side of a coverslip close to the drop of iodine solution while supporting the other side of the coverslip with a mounted needle.
5) Gently and slowly lower the coverslip onto the scrapings
6) Examine the specimen under the microscope and draw what you see

After reading the above instructions, we started to do this experiment. The first 5 steps were very easy and most of us finished it very fast. However, the 6th step was the hardest because it was one of our very first few times touching/using the microscope and so, we could not see the cell very clearly like those in our textbooks. All we could see at first were just small black dots.

Finally, after some adjustments with the power, we managed to get quite a good view of the cheek cell which we extracted from our cheeks.

From this lesson, I have learned how to use the microscope to view cells clearly and also the different parts of the microscope which ms leong went through before the experiment.

This is a video on youtube that shows a person looking at his cheek cell through a microscope.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frEFgP--MB4

Home learning write up + reflection

During the last week of term 2, we had two days of home learning and one of our assignments was this:

1) Design an experiment to remove all the substances in the seawater ( Oil from oil spillages from nearby ships, alcoholic drinks from BBQ parties, sand and gravel, broken glass bits, remnants from dead organisms (parts of seashells, seaweeds, etc.) )

* We were only given these equipments:

Thermometer	Conical Flask	Retort Stand	Spatula
Separating Funnel	Beaker	Tripod Stand	Glass Beads
Filter Paper	Filter Funnel	Wire Gauze
Distilling Flask	Fractionating Column	Evaporating dish
Condenser	Bunsen Burner	Glass rod

My group's answer can be found on sciencexcite.wordpress.com in one of the posts.

Reflection:
I feel that this home learning project is really good as it teaches us the different techniques of separating things and then it gives us an assignment to allow us to apply what we have just learned. The assignment was also very interesting and it was also not too hard or easy.