4. Introduction to cells A. For this exercise, examine at least 3 slides of bacteria , 3 different single-celled eukaryotes , 3 different plants , and 3 different animals.
B. Record in your notebook a sketch of at least one specimen from each group that you examine. Also be sure to record what the specimen is, how big it is, what organelles you can identify, and any other information that you think might be useful during exercise #6, when you formulate and test a hypothesis. Consider this a dual-purpose exercise, to become familiar with cells from many different kinds of organism, and to start collecting preliminary data that may lead to a hypothesis to test.
#5 – Formulate and test a hypothesis A. Now that you are proficient microscopists, and have some familiarity with microscopic organisms, and have some preliminary data (ex. 1 and 4), you can put those abilities to work to generate a hypothesis and test it with an experiment. Based on your observations from this lab (and your general understanding of biology) pick a question or phenomenon related to cells or microscopic organisms, and generate a hypothesis (potential explanation) for your phenomenon. For example, in exercise #4 you may have noticed that all of the cells in the skin of an earthworm seemed to be the same size. You could explain this phenomenon with the hypothesis that “cells from the same tissues are the same size, because they are the same types of cells”. Your hypothesis may or may not be correct, and either is okay. In a few moments you will set up an experiment to test your hypothesis. You will likely need to refer back to your notes from earlier exercises to generate ideas. B. The “scientific method”, and science in general are often perceived as very rigid and procedural, and not particularly creative. However, as you are now finding out it takes a lot of creativity to identify a phenomenon, generate an explanation for it, and devise a way to test your explanation. Use your creativity for this exercise, while working within the limitations of what resources you have available to you for this lab. C. From your hypothesis you should be able to derive a prediction, and from your prediction you should be able to design an experiment to see if your prediction is met or not. Think carefully about what controls you should do such that your results from your experiment are informative. It may be helpful to write your phenomenon, hypothesis, prediction, and alternative hypotheses and ways to control for them.
NOTE: Our hypothesis was that every single cell have prominent border and we looked at plant cells for the experiment and we said that the hypothesis was met. I also attached pictures of part 4 of this lab which was the bacteria, protist, plants and animal that we looked at. you can also add more notes to each one. I also attach my last lab report, please make it similar to this one.
