Teaching laboratory classes, and even appreciating the life sciences, are difficult without the help of a microscope. Moreover, learning how to use the microscope is difficult without the use of prepared slides. There are many different kinds of prepared slides on the market: some slides will contain whole mounts of animals, bacteria, or plant parts, cross sections of specimens, or even whole water or soil samples that might highlight the presence of parasites or microbes. These prepared slides may be bought individually, or they may come in boxes or sets that are organized in terms of species or different sections of a whole organ.

Prepared slides will also be labeled appropriately, in order to aid students or laboratory users in knowing what they are looking at. Of course, prepared slides will be labeled according to the species that they are featuring. They will also be labeled according to what part of the species is on the slide. If it is a whole mount, which is usually the case with microbes, you will see the entire organism once you view the slide under the microscope. If it is a section of an organism or an organ of a living organism, it may be a cross section or longitudinal section.

In some cases, prepared slides will be part of a set, in which a series of slides serves to house all parts of a certain specimen, especially if the specimen is too big to fit on one slide. In some cases, the specimen on a prepared slide will be in an unspecified orientation or section, depending on the convenience of the researcher, or the condition of the sample at the time of sectioning. There will also be differences on how the specimen was placed on the slide: it may have been squashed, in order to make it thin enough to view under the microscope; or it may have been smeared onto the slide and then covered with a cover slip.

Preparing Your Specimens

You, too, can make your own prepared slides in your laboratory. This may be even more convenient for you as you will be able to exercise more control over what specimens you will have, instead of gambling on a box of prepared slides that may have only a few slides that you actually want or need. To start with, you will need to know how to prepare your laboratory specimens for slide mounting. If you are working with plant or animal species, you will need a way to slice or section your specimens thinly. If you are working with bacteria, then you will need to culture them in a suspension, or you can culture them on a solid medium and then smear them onto the slide later.

If you are working with plant or animal specimens, you will also need to fix, or kill these specimens to prepare them for sectioning. You also need to encase them in wax or resin, or any other clear mounting solid that can penetrate into the interior of the tissues that you want to view, and make sectioning of the specimen easier. Once you have these sections ready, you can mount them onto the slide and have them stained.

Staining Your Specimens

There are countless staining methods for plant and animal cells, and many to differentiate microbial cells or simply make them visible. Without the help of stains, it can be difficult to view the specimens under the microscope. Do research on the stains that you need to buy and the staining methods that you will need to undertake in order to complete your specimen staining procedure. For bacterial cells, the process might be different: you will need to smear the sample onto your slide, heat it over an open flame to fix the bacteria onto the slide, and then do your staining.

To keep your specimens intact on your slides, you will need to cover them with a cover slip. The cover slip can be placed directly onto the specimen, and then sealed in place with special sealants. Be careful that your sealing does not leave any unsightly bubbles that might distort the specimen or destroy it.

Finishing Up Your Slides

As soon as you have all your sections or smears mounted on the slides and protected under the cover slip, you will need to label your slide. Make sure to include the name of the species from which the specimen was taken, the orientation of your sectioning, and the staining procedure that you used.

These are only a few ways that you can prepare slides on your own. For more information, do research on the best ways for you to section and stain your laboratory specimens, and read on the different techniques on mounting specimens for optimum use and viewing, as well as storage, much later.