In microscopy, slides are particularly important and are used as placeholders for the specimen under observation. Slides are commonly made of glass, plastic or fiberglass, which are transparent, allowing for light to pass through the specimen.
A nicely prepared slide should provide clear, visible images that provide excellent details for analysis. This is particularly important in such fields as botany, clinical medicine and biological science where microscopes are used to observe and identify various points of interest in the slide.
Prepared slide kits come with a number of already prepared slides, which only require focusing. These sets are prepared by professionals and come ready for viewing. As such, they are very well prepared to ensure that the customer gets to observe clear details of various specimen, and show them what a particular specimen should look like under the microscope. Because they are often prepared as learning tools for students, these slides are prepared with utmost care to last for long time while at the same time retaining their good quality.
While the number of prepared slides in different kits may vary, the kits come with a good number of slides mounted with a range of specimens exposing learners to a variety of specimen far beyond their local environment.
A prepared slide kit may contain such specimen as:
These are just a few examples of what learners may find in a given kit. Typically, a prepared slide kit will contain 20 to as many as 100 slides with different types of specimen.
Prepared slide kits are prepared by professional technicians.
As such, they are excellent learning tools for younger kids, students as well
as microscope hobbyists who wish to view a wide variety of specimen obtained
locally and beyond.
For example, in the event that a student from some parts of America has never seen a malaria parasite, prepared slides kits can allow the student to view and learn about different varieties of this parasite from different countries and regions around the world. Prepared slide kits are therefore beneficial in that they allow students and other enthusiasts to observe a wide variety of specimen from different regions.
Prepared slides are also a great source of reference for both students and hobbyists. Given that they are prepared by professional technicians, these slides would greatly help learners get an idea of what a given mount should look like under the microscope.
By comparing their own mounts with the prepared slide kits, students and hobbyists would gradually learn to prepare the slides that are visible and clear. While various books may give illustrations of how various slides look under the microscope, practically observing prepared slide under the microscope provides a much better experience for learners.
Prepared slides also present a big advantage in that they allow younger kids to observe a range of specimen under the microscope without having to prepare the slide themselves. For younger kids, the preparation procedure may present such risks as injury from the glass slides and cover slips give that they are still not experienced enough. Here, prepared slides eliminates the need for them prepare the slide.
* note, prepared slide kits are not meant to keep students from preparing their own slides, but rather help them learn how a given specimen should look once prepared. However, for much younger kids, there should be supervision from to help them in preparing a slide.
Some of the other benefits of buying a prepared slide kit include:
Some of the kits will also come with:
As mentioned, microscope slide kits are prepared by professional technicians. As such, they are excellent learning tools for both students and hobbyists. On the other hand, they provide a great advantage for all learners by exposing them to a wide range of specimen from different places.
With prepared slide kits, learners can observe different specimen from any part of the world, which would present a great learning opportunity. For example, while learning about a given organism, the student/hobbyist can compare the organism from different parts of the world to learn about how they compare. Given that these slides can last for a long period of time, they can be stored for more comparisons with new organisms in future.
Microscope prepared slide kits therefore present a great learning opportunity for both students and professionals in their field.
Read more about Microscope Prepared Slides and Microscope Slide Preparation as well as cell staining. Here are some fun Beginner Microscope Experiments too.
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