Viewing paramecium under a microscope is a fun project for both kids and parents. Using a student biological microscope (also known as a compound microscope), you can grow some paramecium and watch as they swim around just like the video below.
In order to grow your paramecium, take a clean jar (an old peanut butter jar or jam jar will work) and fill it with some mud, a lot of grass and any hay you can find and then add some water (pond water is even better!) Seal the lid on the jar and set it in a window where it gets a lot of sunlight.
After several days take an eyedropper and place a small drop of the water from the jar on a depression slide. Cover it with a cover slip and put it under the microscope, starting at 40x. Once you get the images in focus, move up to 100x magnification. You may need to move the slide around a bit, but you should be able to locate living specimens!
The video above was captured with this method. We used the Zeiss Primostar HD digital microscope to capture the paramecium video at 100x magnification. Any digital student microscope will be able to capture video of your science project.
Contact Microscope World for further information on viewing paramecium under the microscope or if you have questions about digital microscopes.