Will this microscope be enough for Apologia Biology?

[mom31257]

I'm going to be leading a Biology lab co-op, and a friend owns this microscope. She has offered to let me use it, but I'm not sure it will work for our labs.

 

If it won't be powerful enough , can you recommend the cheapest one that will work well?

[melanie3]

I believe you could scrape by, if that's the goal. It does not have a "fine focus" knob separate from the coarse focus (which is the main thing). You would want two separate knobs--one fine focus. What I mean by "scrape by" is that Youtube has plenty of videos that help you to do the biology. Sometimes, its even better than the microscope and what you can see. Of course, nothing replaces hands-on discover it yourself aha moments....but it is there if you need it. I am going with AMSCOPE. They have a highschool compound microscope for 99.00 and free shipping. It has the 40X=400 mag. and the fine focus..

[mumto2]

We have a good microscope. It is good fun and dh spends alot of time with them looking at things. Someone bleeds --live blood cells. Yeah! You get the picture. He is great at it.

 

The experience using a microscope is what is important. IMO. In can be really hard for everyone to see what they need to.

 

For getting a good look at the different lab items we google. We get photos of slides that are far clearer then anything we can achieve at home. We do it on a Kindle fire. Its so clear. I can make sure both dc's are looking at the right stuff.

 

Not sure how this will translate to your co op but googling the specimens is easy. I have found everything required for apologia biology without problems so far.