Wow! Thanks to all who responded with additional big cell suggestions.
Some ideas might be good to try for the future, but will require some
legwork on my part. Chara and Nitella are certaily good for large, visible
cells, but in my heart I hoped to have something the students are already
somewhat familiar with, something in their everyday experience, and then
have them look at this familiar object and see, gosh, there are cells
there! Chara is not really in the everyday experience of most students.
The cotton fibers, while perhaps are true cells, aren't really what I want
to give students as their first observation of a cell - cotton fibers are
so specialized and unusual. Root hairs might be workable, if I set up agar
plates in advance.
Pipewort and the various moss genera suggested could be a good specimens,
but I'll have to find time to go scouting for them - not knowing where they
grow around here. And ideally the specimen would not be seasonally
available, but be something I could get my hands on anytime I wanted to
show somebody a cell.
Tradescantia stamen hairs might work pretty well, I'll check to see if a 5X
lens will show them.
Thanks again to everyone who posted - and I continue to welcome ideas I can
try.
Kathleen Archer
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