Our Cells & A Digital Microscope)

Hi, my name is Emily, and welcome to Fun Science Demos. Today, the big idea is cells. All living things are made of cells. Whether it's birds, fish, trees, plants, or even us. All living things are made of cells. Cells come in all different shapes. But the thing that they have in common is that they're all very small. And you need a special instrument called a microscope to see them. But we'll take a look at one of those later. We've zoomed in on two models that we've printed on our 3D printer of cells. This one is an animal cell, and this one is a plant cell. But remember, cells come in all different shapes, not just shapes like these. We're going to take a closer look at the parts of this animal cell. Here on the outside is the cell membrane, which holds the cell together. This yellow part is the nucleus, which gives the cell information. And this blue part here is the mitochondria, which gives the cell energy. Now let's take a look at the plant cell. The plant cell has a cell membrane and a cell wall to hold the cell together. But here we have the nucleus, this yellow part here, which gives the cell information. And again, here is the mitochondria that gives the cell energy. Now, remember that instrument we were talking about earlier? The microscope, which we need to see cells? We're going to take a look at a very cool type of microscope called a digital microscope that we can use to look at the cells closely. On most microscopes, to be able to see what's on the slide, you have to look through a lens like this one. But on this microscope, you can see it right here on this screen, and you can even take pictures. This might be kind of hard to see, but a slide is a thin piece of glass like the one I have here that we can put cells on, and we can look at through the microscope. This one doesn't have anything on it, but if you look at this one, this has already been made up. Can you guess what's on this slide? It's the leg of a honeybee. Let's take a look at it under this microscope. We've put the slide with the leg of the bee into this microscope, and look, the picture shows up here. I didn't know there were hairs on the leg of a honeybee, did you? And look how big they are. Wow, this microscope is so cool. This bee leg is made of cells, but we can't see them because they're too small. So we're going to get a different slide that we can take a look at some cells on. We've zoomed in on some muscle cells. Each of these dark dots is a nucleus of a cell which has the cell around it. Isn't that so cool? Here is another section of that same slide. Remember, muscle cells are long and thin. That helps them to do their job. Take a look at this slide. These are human blood cells. They are round so that they can carry oxygen to do their job. They carry oxygen to all the other parts of our body, all the other cells. These cells come from an onion plant. See the dark dot in there? That's the nucleus surrounded by the cell. Can you see how dark the cell membrane is on the onion plant? They're so dark because the cell wall and the cell membrane are together, protecting the cell. Cell walls are important to plants because it helps plants to stand up without bone cells. This microscope is so cool that I want to take a look at some of my cells because remember, all living things, including me, are made of cells. The best way to do this is to take a look at the cells on the inside of your cheek. But remember, don't do this at home by yourself. Only do it with the help of an adult or teacher. We've zoomed in to show you what we're going to need. Some popsicle sticks, a slide, which has some blue stain on it, and a cover slip to cover the stain and the cells to put it onto the microscope. To collect my cells, I'm going to take this popsicle stick and rub it on the inside of my cheek and then dab it gently into the stain. Okay, I think I got some cells. So now I'm going to put the cover slip on top to keep them all in the same place. Here is my finished slide with my cells, and now we're going to pick it up and put it under here. Wow, look at my cells! It looks like there's about four or five cells here. We're going to zoom in to take a closer look at my cells. Wow, we've zoomed in on my cells. In these four or five cells, if you look closely, you can see the dark dot, which is the nucleus. Isn't that cool? Wow, wasn't that so cool to see my cells on the microscope? Remember, to see your own cells, you need a microscope, a slide, a cover slip, a dye, and some popsicle sticks. And adult supervision. Isn't that great? If you want to learn more about this microscope, we've linked it in our video description to the people who made it. And if you want to learn more about cells, we've put links there too. Science is so cool. Thanks for watching.