My children and I are enjoying using the Discovery Scope for our homeschool adventures.  We are seeing the world around us in a whole new way over the past six weeks.  



The Discovery Scope is a small lightweight tool that goes with us everywhere and allows us to see microscopic details of things. That’s what we are doing, observing the world on a microscopic level, but not in a ” traditional science lab”.  Oh no, we are not in a traditional lab, but instead we are using the world as our science lab, and we can conduct our observations right where we find something interesting to look at. 

We are having so much fun.  I have been taking the Discovery Scope with us to the park on Tuesdays and Fridays, and we are using it in the house, and in the yard too.  It has really enhanced our walking and exploration time at the local parks. We are blessed with some very beautiful parks here in WNC.  We are looking at soil at the baseball fields,  plants in the soccer fields and play areas, the water in the ponds and creeks, sand in the sandboxes, the insects on tree branches, flowers, seeds, and so much more.   In the next few weeks we hope to share our Discovery Scope with some friends during a Take Action Tuesday learnign program we host in the park.  We plan to use it in a Sea Weed Science program and for some other things too.



The Discovery Scope is a small lightweight, hand held, wide-field microscope that fits in your purse or backpack and can go everywhere you go.  It has a 25x magnification and is great for looking at just about any object you are interested in.



My kit came in a small zip-lock plastic container and it fits into my diaper bag or purse very well.  We also have taken it stashed in our back pack and it leaves us lots of room for taking along other items for our learning adventures too.

It uses natural light instead of a light bulb. You don’t need a power source, and you don’t need a prepared slide to view with it like traditional microscopes, though it does come with an optional quick slide as well as several helpful tools and it all fits into a small kit that hardly takes up any space. 

 

Though it may look simplistic, it is a revolutionary technological tool. 

 
Though it is compact, at only 3 inches long, it is an engineering marvel and it will advance your student’s understanding of the world around them.

Description adapted from their website:

Advantages of Discovery Scope®

Sturdy:  Discovery Scope is practically indestructible. If your Discovery Scope experiences any problems during normal use – in the home, classroom, or field – we’ll replace the defective part, free.

Child Friendly: Young people of all ages love Discovery Scope. Children of about age 6 or 7 and up usually need about 2-5 minutes of instruction to master the use of Discovery Scope. It’s a great educational tool for children because they can share their discoveries with other children or adults. Discovery Scope encourages children to explore and enjoy nature.

Pass It Around: You can focus on a specimen with Discovery Scope and then pass the ‘Scope around so that everyone in a group can see. It’s great for teaching, for sharing with the family, and for opening the minds of others about the world of the small.

Ideal For Field Use: Discovery Scope is so convenient and compact, it can be used anywhere you go. With no metal parts, Discovery Scope will never corrode. It’s small enough to fit in a loose pocket or a small nylon bag. It’s ideal for backpacking, park exploring, kayaking and all outdoor activities.

No Stray Light: The optical pathway is a dark tube, capped with an eye cup. This eliminates all stray light, giving you the best possible view of the subject, whether it’s a tiny flower, the eyes of a spider, or the swimming legs of a water flea.

It Does The Holding: The subject is held in place in front of the lens by the unique holding system. Once the subject is in focus, it’s fixed in place; until it moves or you move it. You can easily observe your subject for many minutes, or come back to it later.

Light Makes the Difference: The secret to great micro/macro viewing is great lighting. With Discovery Scope you can move the entire imaging system and the specimen into any light conditions you want. You can easily get light to bounce off the front or side of the subject, or you can shine light directly through the subject to see details right inside.

When you look at a square foot of your yard or park, what do you see? How would you like to carry a practical tool with you, where ever you go, that allows you and your children to view the world around you in a new and exciting way? Would your kids be excited, and like to conduct science and art projects on a whole new level?

The Discovery Scope Basic Kit retails for $40 and comes with several attatchments and useful tools: one Discovery Scope, multi use chamber holder, one quick slide, two clear view chambers, one water dropper, one mini clamp. You can also order a camera adapter, and other accessories, and the Discovery Scope is also available in a Naturalist Kit with a custom pack too.


Our experience:

I used a digital camera, and the camera on my cell phone, and took these photos.  I could also have made simple videos with these two tools already in my possession.  But I do hope to acquire the Discovery Scope camera adapter someday to make shooting these pictures and videos easier, because it can be difficult to keep the focus when trying to capture the pictures.  The adapter would hold everything in place for you and make it much easier.  Here are some of the amazing things we have been looking at with our discovery scope: 

A patch of grass.







A flower head of a weed we found at the park.





Clover flowers.












A mature dandelion flower head.





Here we compared different salts.



Here is Coarse Mediterranean Sea Salt (France),



French Celtic sea salt (Brittany Isles),



and Real Salt (Utah).



Need other ideas for investigations?  Try out some of these we have been doing:

1.  Look in the pantry and observe:
grains (oats, wheat, rye, rice, corn, millet), nuts & seeds(cashews, walnuts, pecans, peanuts, almonds, sunflower, pumpkin, etc.), flours (all purpose, whole wheat, corn, spelt, rice, potato, etc.),  sugars (sucanat, demera, turbinado, evaportated cane juice, rapadura, white, powdered, etc.) pastas (whole grain varieties, rice varieties, regular semolina varieties spaghetti, elbow, penn, rigatoni, etc.), spices, etc.

2. Observe local water sources (ponds, creeks, lakes, rivers, ocean).

3. Observe fresh fruits and vegetables.

4. Observe tree leaves from different trees.

5. Observe insects.

6. Observe small creatures.

7. Observe sea shells.

8. Observe toys.

9. Observe different soils and sand.

10. Observe a variety of plants and their parts: flowers, stems, roots, seeds.

11. Observe animal poop.

12. Observe various rocks and minerals.

There are so many ideas, you will never get bored!

I definitely recommend the Discovery Scope for every family, homeschool, classrooms, teachers, and one for grandma and grandpa too.  It is a must have for homeschoolers!  I’ll be encouraging my friends to get one of these wonderful Discovery Scopes and I will be sending some out to family and friends as gifts.  These are wonderful, easy to use, take anywhere tools your family will love.





Read the TOS Homeschool Crew blog to see what others had to say about the Discovery Scope.

Disclaimer:  I received the product mentioned above, as a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew in exchange for writing an honest review.  All opinions expressed are my own honest opinion.



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