Preparing your slide to view onion cells

• 1. Add a drop of water to the middle of a clean slide
• 2. Cut up an onion and separate it out into layers. Use tweezers to peel off some epidermal tissue from the bottom of one of the layers.
• 3. Using the tweezers, place the epidermal tissue into the water on the slide
• 4. Add a drop of iodine solution
• 5. Place a cover slip on top. Try not to get any air bubbles under there - they'll obstruct your view of the specimen.
• A cover slip is a square piece of thin, transparent plastic or glass
• Iodine solution is a stain used to help see specimens under a microscope
• Epidermal tissue is a protective tissue that covers the entire surface of the plant