I saw that someone mentioned H&E stained sections - eosin 
does fluoresce nicely under the filters you have (well, 
not so much with the DAPI). If you can't get actual 
stained tissue slices, you can just mix any fluorescent 
dye into mounting media. Some plastics fluoresce; 
 Kimwipes are great, too - although it never occurred to 
me to make a permanent mount (I'm going to do that this 
morning). if you check the archives there was a discussion 
about making pollen slides earlier this year - those will 
fluoresce & can be done "on the cheap". Carolina 
Biological sells permanent slides of all kinds of things; 
there are other biological supply places but I can't think 
of any right now.

Tamara

On Fri, 14 Nov 2008 08:45:52 -0800
  Jonathan M Krupp <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hi:
> 
> This is a pretty basic and simple question. I need some 
>advice about rounding up some samples to use in an 
>elementary light microscopy class that includes basic 
>fluorescence.
> 
> I am at a community college and my background is in EM 
>and brightfield LM. I have a passing familiarity with 
>confocal et al but not enough to know much. I maintained 
>a confocal, but never ran experiments or prepared much in 
>the way of samples. Now I have to get something together 
>to demonstrate the fundamentals of fluorescence to 
>students in a new job.
> 
> I have been relying on chlorophyll autofluorescence up 
>til now, but would like to add anything that would be 
>easy to do. We have a simple scope with filters for FITC, 
>rhodamine, and DAPI, I think. What would be some fool 
>proof, easy to get samples to try?
> 
> In addition, I would eventually like to add some kind of 
>confocal experience to this class, any ideas about where 
>to find an inexpensive system would be great.
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Jon
> San Joaquin Delta College
> Stockton, CA 95207
> [log in to unmask]

***************************
Tamara Howard
Cell Biology & Physiology
UNM-HSC
Albuquerque, NM
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