PEMC At Spring Fest

Join us for a day of fun for the whole family!  Spring Fest is a celebration of flora and fauna, mixing fun and education that will delight the young, and the young at heart.  This year, the Purdue Electron Microscopy Center is getting involved for the first time!  Come join us in the lobby of Lilly Hall on April 12th to see what bugs and pollen look like in an electron microscope.  Our electron microscopes (EM) are too big to bring with us to Lilly Hall, but we will bring lots of pictures taken on our microscopes to show you what the EM can do.   

Why electron microscopes?

Bugs and flowers look pretty neat just with the naked eye.  Put them under a magnifying glass and you start to see more clearly.  Then under a light microscope, some hints of intricate detail start to appear.  Want an even closer look?  That is where electron microscopy comes in!  Take a close look at a bee stinger, see the hair on a bug's leg, inspect the structure of a butterfly wing, take a glance at the eye of a fly!  See the texture of rose petals, observe the stomata on plant leaves that allow them to breathe, realize just how many different shapes pollen can take!  All of these things are easy to see in an electron microscope—in fact, to an electron microscope, all of those things are huge!   

We are looking forward to introducing you all to the teeny-tiny world of electron microscopy.  See you there!