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Microscopes for kids & mentors (santa cruz)
condition:
excellent
make / manufacturer:
Various
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Over one hundred stereo and one hundred compound microscopes are available at reasonable prices (at cost) as part of our local "Micronaut" program. - typically about half what a used microscope dealer would charge. A good-quality compound or stereo scope might range from $200 to $500. We also have a few high-end scopes destined for mentors with fluorescence, phase contrast, and DIC
The goal is to equip families and mentors with tools to stimulate curiosity and learning of the world around us.
There's an amazing world of micro subjects to explore. Additional microscopes have been donated to the Santa Cruz Children's Museum of Discovery - with about two dozen left. If you're a "MOD" member family, they can offer a similar good deal in return for a donation. We can help teachers add lessons to their classrooms.
For those willing to be adult mentors, there are microscopes featuring polarization, phase contrast, differential interference contrast, episcopic illumination, and more from makers including Leica, Meiji, Nikon, Olympus, Reichert, Wild Heerbrugg, and Zeiss.
Microscopy offers a compelling education and avocation for kids and parents (siblings, grandparents, etc.) — and not just for biology, physiology, medicine, geology, the chemistry of crystals, and high-tech applications. There's also art in the images, software skills to be learned in acquiring them, and photo and video making skills to be learned in sharing them.
Becoming a “Micronaut” is a great way to:
- Learn (biology, geology, fossils, plants, semiconductor circuits, microbes, pond critters, agriculture, cells and chromosomes, medicine, nano particles, even the art of polarized crystals and minerals . . .)
- Explore (your own backyard, beach, kitchen, pet hairs, forensics, home shop, woods, walks, micrometeorites from space . . .)
- and share (your discoveries and collections, cellfies, digital photos . . .)
The Santa Cruz “Micronaut” program makes great used microscopes available to parents, mentors, and kids at or slightly below our cost. Scopes are guaranteed to work.
We can also help you find a great scope, new or used, on your own. Or perhaps help you fix or use the one you may already have.
There are three ways to get started:
1) Send for an extensive guide to various microscope brands and models. While a lot of information -- it can help you buy a great microscope, new or used, that fits your needs, within your price range. This will come in PDF format and can be emailed to you.
2) Consider buying one of the 100+ used and reconditioned microscopes available (some have been donated for resale by the Santa Cruz Children’s Museum of Discovery, and some are part of the Micronaut program). These are sold at our cost of fixing them up at prices from $100 (lower cost student microscope) up to a couple thousand (advanced differential contrast etc. microscopes suitable for serious mentors). Rather than a toy, $200 to $500 can buy a professional microscope in great condition that once sold for hundreds or thousands of dollars.
These are sold at better prices than one would find from a typical used microscope dealer and about what you would find on Ebay (beside donations, that’s where we often find many of them to fix up). If a motivated child’s parents can’t afford a microscope, we can also arrange a free scope in return for developing a lesson for other kids.
3) Let us know your interests and get recommendations that would get your family off to a great start. The best way to get kids involved is likely a parent , two or more siblings, or other close mentor willing to spend some time once a week to share some discovery. It is even better if it matches up with some interest (beach trips, camping, cooking, shop work, collecting, tinkering hobbies, tc.). For example, we have one grandparent who keeps a stereo microscope by a window near her kitchen. Her two young grandkids love exploring everything after they’re back from the market or garden and start cooking. The younger one, of course, wants to be involved in everything. A father keeps one in his metal and wood shop, to explore metals and materials at micro scale. An artist is now taking amazing photos of chemical crystals under polarized light – like a trip to the abstract paintings at MOMA.
We can suggest scopes and options to get you started; either new from somewhere like Amazon, used from somewhere like Ebay, or from our own inventory.
For younger kids, the best bet is likely to be a low-power stereo microscope. It’s amazing what a strawberry, computer chip, halftone, coin, stamp, or garden bug looks like from the micro world.
For older kids interested in seeing cells and chromosomes, pond critters, diatoms, fungi, hairs, textiles, polarized crystals, and so on -- a compound scope is the next step.
Just a cell phone camera with a holder to keep it steady can take excellent photos and videos to share.
Respond to this listing if you think there is a budding “Micronaut” in your midst, now with the time and interest to explore the vast universe around us at 7x to 1000x scale.
The “next big thing” in science will often be too small to see with the unaided eye. Micronauts are like Astronauts – but exploring the hidden world (and science) at micro scale. Now is a great time to begin this exploration.
Note: Note: the rotifer image is by Rogelino Moreno