Magnifying Experiences – Elementary School Work

By Rebekah Kamerman – Arrowhead Bible College

He closed one eye and peered into the microscope eyepiece. A line of chattering kids eagerly waited their turn to look into this new world of science. They were looking at a tiny bug—head lice, a common problem for nearly all the kids, and looking larger than life through the magnification of the microscope. The local elementary school had received a microscope nearly a year ago but nobody knew how to assemble it and show the kids how to use it.

Suddenly all those hours doing laboratory work proved useful as I had the skills to assemble and teach the teachers and students how to use this exciting tool. When it came to teaching the teachers how to use it they produced several lice from a student which I put on a slide to show them. The first teacher to look through the eyepiece actually screamed. While they are very used to lice, they perceive them as insignificant, but looking at it through a microscope brought a whole new dimension to the tiny insect. It was huge—too big to even see the whole thing in the lense, and still wriggling. One teacher made the comment that we needed to show this to every child in the school because maybe it would motivate them to bathe every day.

I was already planning on helping teach the fifth graders science the next day and had asked them to bring me bugs, dead bugs so we could look at them through the microscope. I collected the bugs from the students the next day, every one of which was still alive… and huge, and made slides of spiders and more lice.

I set the microscope up on a low bench in the school yard. While the tropical sun served as a light source for the experiment, we had the classes line up one at a time to have their first look. It was really amazing for me to be the one who was opening this door into the realm of the tiny microscopic world for these children. They are intelligent and inquisitive and their excitement mounted as their turn came closer. Each child had a different reaction to seeing the lice so large and clear. Some exclaimed that it looked like a spider, some that it looked like a monster, and all were amazed at how big it really looked. I let them look at the lice and spider legs before sending them back to class. All in all over one hundred kids got to look into the world of the microscope for the first time today. As I watched their reactions I wondered if, here in the tiny Cal Sur Elementary school, some great future scientist is having their curiosity peaked. If this experience will open their minds to so much more than they can see with just their eyes.

Looking through a microscope is in many ways parallel to looking at the world through the eyes of Jesus. We look at someone and see them as insignificant and commonplace. We look at the poor of this world as a common problem, as nobody worth sharing time and the love of Christ with. But when we look at them through the lense of the love of Jesus, we see men, women and children who are vastly important. That they are worth the time and energy to build relationships with, and are invaluable to the kingdom of God. We see people that we can learn from, build up, and be blessed by. People that we can gladly share in the joint inheritance as children of God and together, further strengthen the body of Christ.