Spotlight on Grants - LFHS Students Observe Life Sciences Through a New Lens

Hands-on experience with a high-quality microscope is a great way to spark curiosity and create long-lasting interest in science. Thanks to a recently-awarded LFHS Foundation grant, every Lake Forest High School student will now have the opportunity to experience state-of-the-art microscope technology during their high school career.

This past summer, 72 LABOMED CxL microscopes were delivered and installed in the biology and life sciences classrooms at the high school. According to LFHS Science Teacher, Kurt Schuessler, these new microscopes are a significant upgrade over the “economy grade” microscopes that have been used in the past and are more in-line with the type of microscopes that are found in college and medical laboratories.

New Microscopes Offer 3 Major Upgrades

“The old microscopes were tricky for students to use; it was hard for them to find objects on their own,” said Schuessler. “Now, they will be able to work independently and make their own discoveries, without a teacher walking around, adjusting their specimen and showing them what they are supposed to be seeing.”

Schuessler explained that the CxL microscopes offer three major upgrades that will make the learning process more enriching and rewarding for both students and teachers:

The new microscopes are much more user-friendly because the eyepiece is binocular instead of monocular. This allows users to observe an image through two eyepieces in stereo vision, which will help reduce fatigue and discomfort during the observation process.
Lenses (and the quality of the lenses) are one of the most important parts of a microscope, as they are responsible for image formation and quality as well as specimen magnification and resolution. The high-quality lenses used in the CxL microscopes will offer nicer optics, finer details and better fields of view.
The CxL microscopes also have an upgraded mechanical stage (where the specimen is placed for observation). The stage is controlled by dials, instead of the user’s fingers, to physically move the specimen into view. The dials will help students find objects easier, as little adjustments are hard to make manually.

The ease of use and the upgraded quality and features of the new microscopes will likely lead to an increase in microscopy labs at the high school. The students will have new opportunities to study bacteria, protists, human tissues and chromosomes, genes, plant anatomy and other tiny specimens and to make more sophisticated observations.

Osseous tissue which gives strength and structure to bone.

Pseudostratified ciliated columnar epithelium, tissue from nasal passages and lungs.

Onion cells going through mitosis.

“It is easy to ‘Google’ images instead of getting out the old microscopes and having the students try to make the observations on their own,” says Schuessler. “While you can find the same image on Google, there is no substitute for the hands-on experience of using a microscope.”

Schuessler said that he was always interested in science, but he did not understand the power of a microscope until he went to college. Now he is hoping that Lake Forest students will discover the “WOW” factor of microscopes in high school and be inspired to explore new fields of study.

The LABOMED CxL microscopes were awarded during the LFHS Foundation’s 2020 Spring Grant Cycle and are part of its continued investment in and commitment to the sciences at Lake Forest High School. To date 34 grants—totaling more than $330,000—have funded equipment, technology, educational, software, and lab furniture upgrades in the Science Department.