Center Focus

Compare Hair

  1. Have instructions at this center for the students to observe different types of hair. They should all have a piece of their own hair to examine under a microscope. Also, you may provide hair from different animals for comparison: dog, cat, mouse, guinea pig, horse, etc.
  2. Have students look at individual pieces of hair under the microscope and draw a detailed representation of the hair. Microscopes with different powers of objective lenses work best, as students gain a better visual perspective of what they are observing.
  3. Make sure students label their drawings and jot down observations for each specimen.
  4. Have students compare the hairs in chart format, including length, thickness, surface texture, etc.