Protists

This is a high school Biology post, if you didn’t figure that out from the title. I realized most people don’t know what a “protist” is. It is a eukaryotic, usually single celled, organism that just doesn’t fit in any other kingdom group. These guys are a ton of fun, b/c you can see them in the microscope fairly easy, unlike bacteria which are just too small to see in a regular microscope.

For our protista module (module 3 in the Apologia Biology book) we put together pond jars, but they were a bust. We couldn’t find anything in them and they do start to stink. In the book, these are for the bacteria module, but we had much better results with the petri dishes. And, yes, these are worth doing, I’ll explain how in a future post.

what you don’t think bacteria cultures are really cool?

So, I decided to go ahead and get some ready made protists from homesciencetools.com (I am not an affiliate, but so far this is the best place I’ve found to get specialized supplies. Carolina.com is another place, but they are better for teachers who have a class of 30 students.)

This is what you want:

please ignore all the other stuff, and notice the “mixed protozoa” container

This stuff is the bomb. We found all 4 of the organisms that are suppose to be in there easily, and I kept hearing “It’s moving!” “Wow, that guy is fast.” and other such explanations.

And I have plenty of it left over, and no microscope at home to enjoy it with. :::pouty face::::

This is much cheaper than buying the set of 3 protozoa cultures, and you get 4 organisms. Yes, you have to pay the $13.95 drop ship fee, but that’s because these are living specimens. And yes, it comes from carolina.com, which I just said was better for teachers with a full class. Homesciencetools.com is acting as a go between for us, they get us the good deals (or something like that…). You set the date for them to be delivered, and they come by UPS. And even with the $13.95 drop ship fee, these are still a better deal than the Basic protozoa culture (the set with cultures for 3 organisms).

Now to grow fungus…..