Procedure

Steps to SEM sample:

1) Place the carbon tape in the center of your stub

2) Get your tweezers and make three sections for your three pollen samples (one paint brush for each plant pollen)

3) Once you have divided your stud, collect pollen from your plant and place it on your stub. Do this buy dipping your paint brush in each pollen sample and dabb it onto the desired area on your pollen stub

4) When you have all three pollen samples, spray liquid air in a circular motion starting from 1.5 feet to 2in. Do this multiple times to make sure access pollen is removed and will not damage the SEM

5) Place your stub in the cup from the SEM. Twist it to the left till it is level to the cup

6) Once you hear the "click", spin the top of your cup four times to the right

7) Place the cup into the SEM by holding onto the handle on the cup and wait for the green light to come on

8) Gently push down the door and press the "maze" button

9) Then map your sample by pressing the "map" button

10) Press settings, label, and enter your plant name, period number and first initials of your teammates

11) Start scanning your pollen sample by pressing the plus sign

12) To focus on your image use "A", and to contrast, it is above the focus button

13) To zoom, turn the knob to the right

14) To take pictures press the camera button

15) To measure, press on "Archive" and select on the picture you are wanting to measure

16) Press on the ruler and press on the two locations you are wanting to measure from and save the picture

17) When you are done taking pictures and measuring them, press the eject button and conferm with the check mark

18) Wait for it to unlock and open the door and pull the cup out

19) Twist the top of the cup clockwise and and when the stub is to the top, pull the stub out

20) Place your stub in the box and the cup on-top of the SEM

How we gathered pollen: We gathered pollen from winter pansy, red tulip and alstroemeria. Flowers were dried and placed in a small container (provided by Ms.Lindahl). A small paint brush designated for each flower is then dipped in the container to gather the small pollen grains.

Equipment: 
Leica - We used the Leica microscope to get our 35x pictures. How the Leica microscope works is the microscope is connected to a computer. You place your pollen or flower on the microscope stage and the image come up onto the computer. You can adjust the light and focus settings to make your image sharper. The Leica images focuses on one specific item and blurs the outsiders.
SEM - We used the SEM Phenom FEI to get more in depth images of our plants pollen. On the SEM we got images ranging from 340x to 5450x. We could see the shape and measure the size of our pollen and even get a close up look on the surface of our pollen. The SEM has two major parts. One part where you place your pollen stub thats inside of a cup into, which is connected to a computer that shows you your image.

Growth Media: We were not successful in our pollen growing. Our pollen stayed the same throughout the experiment.

Scientific Names:
Winter Pansy - Viola tricolor
Red Tulip - Tulipa
Alstroemeria - Alstroemeria aurea

What we are looking for: We are looking to see if their is a difference in the pollen of perenial and annual flowers.

We optimized our images by capturing interesting and important pictures that helped show the differences in the pollen. Under the Leicia microscope, we photographed the different pollen of each flower by the stigma. In the SEM we photographed the Winter Pansy, Red Tulip and Alstroemeria under various views. We captured what the pollen looks like, the size of each pollen and the surface of the pollen.