Doug Weibel admits he has used his own kids as “guinea pigs to test out ideas.” But he never imagined a “relatively inexpensive” $85 microscope he bought them from a toy store would lead him to create MicroExplorers, an educational outreach program to introduce elementary students, their teachers, and parents to the world of optical microscopy.

Weibel, an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry at University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison, brought home a Digital Blue microscope for his children, then ages seven and four. “I was amazed by how focused they were on it,” he says, chuckling at his own pun. His children took “thousands of pictures” and submitted several of them to prestigious science image competitions. “Here you have a couple of little kids…working on discovery-based science,” he says, a realization that moved him to form a “network with other likeminded people interested in using microscopes to teach science.”

Challenges awaited him. “Building an outreach program based on microscopy is difficult,” he contends, because microscopes require a lot of maintenance and can be heavy to transport. But he calls his lightweight kids’ microscope with its built-in camera “an incredible device” that is easy for children to use and therefore worth the effort.

“Working with kids is a blast,” he adds, especially with very young kids in grades K–3. “The kids are fearless and so creative, so willing to take chances.”

Weibel has assembled a team of young UW scientists, educators, and designers who lead the MicroExplorers events and develop the curriculum modules. One of them is Troy Dassler, a first-grade bilingual teacher at Aldo Leopold Elementary School in Madison who interned in Weibel’s lab last summer as part of the university’s Materials Research Science and Engineering Center’s Research Experience for Teachers program. Dassler taught the completed modules this year.

“The children loved it,” he says. “I did some pre-testing to gauge their understanding of the microworld before we started.” Most students, he found, “could only name objects roughly the size of a dime when asked, ‘What is the smallest thing you can think of?’ MicroExplorers and the microscopes have opened up a new world to the students.”

Dassler used the MicroExplorers modules as a springboard for inquiry. “I created a game like Chutes and Ladders that introduced to elementary-aged students the idea of scientific inquiry.” After playing the game, he says, “the students started working on their own projects. I had two students who were comparing the eye structures of all of the various types of crickets in the forest behind our school. We used the time-lapse abilities of the computers to record a bean sprouting.” He was pleased to learn four of his students “are certain they will be scientists when they grow up.”

Dassler and Hannah Tuson from Weibel’s lab also presented MicroExplorers to “about 100 Girl Scouts” at the Madison Children’s Museum. “We modified the program for them. The girls used the microscopes to look at tiny [cookie] crumbs. They needed to use all their senses to match the tiny crumb to the correct cookie. The girls loved it, and we received very good feedback from parents and scout leaders.”

The activities also are designed for use by families, Weibel points out, and parents tend to be very enthusiastic participants. When families stop by an activity table, the kids take the lead, but the parents soon “elbow their way in.” He notes with amusement that “about 75%” of photos taken at MicroExplorers events depict parents operating the microscope. That’s a good thing, he believes, because “kids retain information better” when it is learned as “family science.”

The program is currently active “in 20-plus schools around Madison,” according to Dassler. “We taught a class to undergrads who also lead science after-school clubs. So they are out there leading clubs with the MicroExplorers lessons and sharing prototype kits we developed.” He has applied for a Toyota TAPESTRY Grant for Teachers this year, hoping to obtain funds so each club can have “its own science notebooks and MicroExplorers kit.”

Weibel says funding for MicroExplorers has come from “my pocket, unrestricted funds from grants and awards, and small grants from local agencies,” such as the Berbee Technical Education Fund. He hopes to acquire funds from the National Science Foundation or private foundations to expand the program.

He hopes the program will extend beyond Madison, with students around the country sharing their research and findings on the MicroExplorers website and the curriculum posted online for all to use. He has heard from people “as far away as Australia” who have expressed an interest in the program.