Nature Through the Looking Glass
Wednesday Wings Week #5
Today I was pondering snowflakes: what can we learn from these mathematically and visually stunning works of nature? Maybe something about symmetry or crystalline structures or seasons or phases of matter. No need to reinvent the wheel — I googled, “What can we learn from snowflakes?”
My search led me to a wonderful write-up from another educator on Medium, Jana Remy:
Her story includes beautiful images of snowflakes under a microscope, taken by her son. They inspired me in multiple ways.
First, I am now determined to collect some snowflakes and look at them through our microscope!
Second, I recalled past times with my son, using our pocket microscope to examine all kinds of things. There was a period of time when we carried it everywhere in our hiking backpacks.
The above photo shows a plant cell (perhaps a sunflower stem, though my memory is fuzzy) and the lead photo shows a feather. The plant cell came on a prepared slide that I purchased from a science store, but we found the feather ourselves.
With a pocket microscope, you don’t need a slide — you can look at just about anything on a flat surface. It’s like carrying a new perspective in your bag. You start to notice everything around you — paper, salt, human or animal hair, flower petals, blades of grass — and wonder what it looks like from a zoomed-in point of view.
You might achieve a similarly fun result with a magnifying glass.
When my son was very young, we attended a young scientists workshop at the local library and received a free magnifying glass as well as several colored lenses to look through — we could apply red, yellow, blue, purple, or green color filters to anything. We could take pictures that way, too.
With all of these unique ways of seeing the world, I’m also reminded of my mother’s penchant for taking photos through a prism lens toy.
What new lens can you look through today? How can you change the way you see the world? Can you take a picture of it? Show us!
Use the subtitle “BBM Wednesday Wings Week #5” and the tag “Nature Learning.”
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