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Little kids love the pollen that looks like mickey mouse's head. 
Available on Carolina Biological Supply's mixed pollen slide.

On 1/28/2011 12:26 PM, Kathryn Spencer wrote:
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>
> I've used pollen for just this type of demo. A variety of your local flora makes it more real, and the confocal is absolutely necessary to reveal the structure, instead of being just a bright blob. Autofluorescent = no prep time. I just took some sticky tape out to some plants around the building, put mounting media on it, and covered with a coverslip. If you can show a Widefield, unresolved blob side-by-side, it is effective. Experiment beforehand to find the most interesting and diverse grains in your area, and bring in a cutting from that plant.
> 	Kathy
> The Scripps Research Institute
> La Jolla, CA
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Runions
> Sent: Friday, January 28, 2011 9:11 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Simple animal demo specimen ideas
>
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> Dear microscopists,
>
> Each year at our university Science Bazaar we demonstrate our imaging
> 'prowess' and equipment to the community at large (adults and kids).  This
> event is always well received and the biggest attraction of all is usually
> the dissecting microscopes because we let the kids look at their disgusting
> fingernails and they like that.  SEMs work well because we can show head
> lice and rats tongue and... well you are probably starting to see a theme.
>
> The problem is giving a really good demo with the confocal microscopes - we
> show GFP labelled organelles moving around inside living cells and demos of
> 3D reconstruction but this doesn't really seem to capture the kids
> imaginations.
>
> Does anybody have a favorite organism or staining technique that is simple
> and effective as a demo in a situation where lots of people are moving
> through fairly quickly.
>
> I appreciate your suggestions.
>
> John
>
>    


-- 


George McNamara, PhD
Analytical Imaging Core Facility
University of Miami