“A World Unknown to Me”

Rihito Hatanaka
Bange-higashi Elementary School, 3rd Grade,
Aizubange-chō, Fukushima Prefecture“What!! 250 times bigger!?”
When I found the microscope, I couldn’t stop myself from saying that. If
something I see with my eyes is made 250 times bigger, what is it going to look like? Ifelt so thrilled that I wanted to look at many different things through the microscoperight away.

I found out that microscopes have two observation methods, the first called tōka,which casts light from below, and the second called rakusha, which casts light fromabove. My Grandpa and Grandma grow vegetables at their home, such as onions, okra,and cherry tomatoes, so I decided to get eleven species of them for my observation.

For tōka observation, we make a preparation slide that holds a thinly sliced
specimen between the microscope slide and a cover glass with one drop of water
added. In five days, I made 57 preparation slides. When I made them, I used my left
hand to hold down what I wanted to cut, and used my right hand to slide the blade of a
sharp box cutter toward me, cutting the sample thin right at the tips of my left fingers,which made me feel quite nervous because I thought I might cut my own hand. When I
put the cover glass over the preparation slide, air and water bubbles sometimes got inso that I had to do it over many times.

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“Now I’m completely prepared!! I can finally do the observations,” I thought, butthen it was difficult to operate the microscope, so it took me more time again.

I could not wink or close only one eye, so I used my left hand to hold my left eye
closed, while I used my right hand to adjust the focus and to move the preparation
slide. Even when I moved the slide a little bit, the specimen got far away out of theframe, and at times moved upward, downward, left, and right, opposite to the directionof my operation, which rubbed me the wrong way, because I couldn’t bring to thecenter what I wanted to observe. But I gradually got used to it, and felt a little bit likehaving become a research scientist, which made me happy.

As I looked through the microscope, the vegetables somehow appeared to me
like Mount Fuji, a map of Japan, people’s faces, and planets like Mars and Jupiter. On
the underside of a leaf, I could see holes called “stomata,” which adjust water in theplant. I looked them up in an encyclopedia and was more than amazed when I learned
that plants too are “breathing” just like us humans.

“I want to look at more things! I want to find out more!” I thought, and put
under the microscope the T-shirt I was wearing, then looked through the lens:“Woah!! What’s this?”
I felt as if my eyes got twice as big as before. It was because I saw something I did notimagine. It seemed to resemble something…
“Oh, I know what it is! It’s harusame salad!!”I could see the fine weft and warp woven together, each and every yarn appearing thickand shiny.

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The world seen through the microscope was a world I had never seen before, aworld of wonder spreading out vast, making itself interesting because it cannot be seenwith the naked eye. If things are magnified 500 times, or even 1000 times, how would
they look? What new discoveries can I make? Just thinking like that, my dream grows
bigger and bigger. I wish to keep looking into the world of the microscope yet unknown
to me.

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