You buy this material from Carolina Biological (Cat. #13-1308). It is only ~$7, so it won’t bust the bank. This is an amazing, large cell that will crawl around on a glass slide and change shape. You can also see the food vacuoles (red dots) inside the cell. These are intracellular organelles and they are moving around very fast inside of the cell. (Small biological motors move these organelles along tracks called microtubules (the motors and the tracks are much too small to be seen directly with this microscope).

Also, be aware that the amoeba are very difficult to see without the Vitachrome stain, so make sure that your order this. These amoeba cannot be cultured, but they will last a week. So order them so that they arrive just before using them in your class.

Best viewed by making time lapse movies (~1 frame per second or 1 frame per 2 seconds; 15 frame/sec playback speed). Use bottom illumination.