The eyepiece lens then enlarges this just like a magnifying glass, so that the observer s eye traces the light back to see a much bigger image. In this activity, students should see the relationship between magnifying lenses and microscopes and realize that the same principle used in finding the focal point of a lens is used in focusing a microscope. Field microscope Source of light, flashlight or good room light. Newsprint, and comics from the newspaper. In this activity students will be doing comparative observations of objects using a simple water drop magnifier, a hands lens and a field microscope which is an example of a basic compound microscope.
Students can work individually or in pairs, depending on the number of students in the class.
This can be a teacher-guided activity or students can work independently using the student page as a guide. There will be three different explorations in this activity. Part 1 Part 1 involves the construction of a water drop magnifier, a type of simple microscope. The students will use a plastic slide, their Science Notebook, a grease pencil, an eyedropper, a small container of water and some newsprint, both black and white, and colored print from the comics section of the newspaper. Students will take the plastic slide and draw a circle in the center of the slide with the grease pencil.