Onion+Drawing+Lab


 * Onion Drawing Lab**

This lab gave us some much needed exposure and practice using the compound microscopes. We practiced how to create wet mount slides of onions to look at them under the microscopes. While we observed the onions under different magnification levels, we practiced drawing microscope observations by hand. We then tried to label significant features of the onion cells such as the nucleus, cell wall, and cytoplasm.
 * Introduction**


 * File**

In this activity, I felt like both the creation of the wet mount slides and the observation of the slides under the microscope at different magnification levels went very well for me. I was able to see clearly the onion cells under different magnifications and was able to spot out the significant parts of the cell (e.g. the nucleus). However, at the time of the lab, I was not aware of what was the format of the drawings (we were informed to sketch the cell by the substitute) therefore, I did not draw it within a circle, different times for different magnifications, list the magnification of the lens, and mention the field of view for the sketch. Therefore, I learned a valuable lesson in how to properly sketch microscope observations with the previously listed qualities. In the future, to enhance the process of learning for myself, I would be able to sketch the observations properly and try to make more observations relating to the qualitative data (listing down observations other than the drawing that might include color, size proportional to other objects in the image, or more of the type of cell part I was looking at). This lab prepared me greatly for the microscope lab that followed it. It reintroduced me to microscopes (I had not used them for about 1 or 2 years) and let me 'play around' with them before the more intensive work with microscopes started.
 * Reflection**

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