Dale Giannatasio

Giannatasio’s innovative teaching idea, “Scoping Our World,” is designed to develop the interest of the science students to discover and see the tiny world that runs the bigger world. With a regular microscope, by the time the students look in it, viewing is hard as the plankton zoom in and out of the viewing area. By using a new digital compound microscope, students will be able to see the fast-moving zooplankton in water samples. The new microscope will also enable teachers to project water samples on a large screen and point to things as they move through the viewing field, allowing the entire classroom to be able to see them in action. An additional microscope, the stereomicroscope, will allow students to see thicker specimens that do not allow light to pass through, such as insects, tissue samples from pig dissections, plants and rocks. A stereomicroscope can also zoom in more to the individual materials that make up soil. For example, if there is soil with a worm in it, students will be able to see it clearly.