Looking through the Ocular Lens

If you have not heard of this competition (Nikon Microscopy U:  Small World Competition), check out the link below

I think it is one of the best things I show my classes each year.  Watching students fumble around with the microscope is always frustrating.  Though they are curious what a piece of magazine paper or a cell looks like, they are so fixated on how to use the damn microscope they miss the point.  Completely miss the point and I can absolutely irate over this fact.  I love science.  Have since I was a kid.  Everything I did I didn't just do for the high grade (though it seems now that's what its all about).  I wanted to have a deeper understanding of what I am experiencing and appreciate the fact that some old dude (how I reference scientists when around my students) took the time to figure this out for its purity.

That's what I wish students would do too.  Just take a step back and look through the microscope as if they are looking at a piece of are at the Met.  Though now that I think of it, they probably even take that for granted too.  Education as a way to better the mind and soul has escaped our youth today.  I do what I can to lasso it back but it is really really hard. 

When I show the images of this competition (and yes I go through every single picture every single year), I have the students take all their belongings and put them on the floor.  I want them to appreciate the beauty in nature and that you can find this beauty in places other than a partially frozen creek on the side of a mountain in January; cause who doesn't stop and watch the little bit of water trickling down the ice.  I want them to see that there is more beneath the surface of understanding fine/coarse adjustment knobs and how to identify the nucleus of an animal cell.  I want my students to look through the microscope with an open eye and just view what they see for what it is, not what is going to be on a test.  Hopefully one of these days I can accomplish this tremendous feat.  I am close

Link to the competition website:  http://www.microscopyu.com/smallworld/gallery/