Given my druthers, we would have the Galileo 1200x, which is pretty much the one that I had as a child – rugged as hell, powerful and while it is not as simplified as the Meade, it isn’t as touchy as the Vivitar. But that one is fifty bucks which unfortunately is more than this student can afford.

In all honesty, there aren’t really any good scopes that would be easy to use and rugged enough for most four year olds. The advantage of the Celestron is that it is digital and therefore the child doesn’t have to figure out the closing of one eye, to look into it (most four year olds I have known have a lot of trouble with that. The Galileo is handy for that, because it comes with the photo attachment that functions as a basic screen, but that is somewhat unsatisfactory as far as the image quality goes. Stereo microscopes are probably the best, but I haven’t actually seen many for much under $200. Learning Services has a student stereo microscope by Ken-A-Vision (never heard of) for $75, but I am skeptical of one at that low of a price. At the same time, it is advertised as a student scope, which may mean it is rather heavy duty.

Honestly, my recommendation would be to go for the Galileo if it is in your price range, because it is a really sturdy piece of equipment and comes with the photo attachment. Short of that, the Meade is pretty damned sturdy too and I am sure you could find a photo attachment – or could look for a digital viewer, which may not be too hard on the wallet – though if you can do that, I would go for the Galileo to attach it to.

But then he also grew up often seeing papa lying around the house in a skirt and sometimes wearing one in public. One of our best friends before we moved to Portland was Star, a black lab who lives with a male born woman. One of the people who worked on my roofing crew for a couple of summers was a woman. He played with Polly Pocket with his mother. He also willing to play pretty pink princess with one of his best friends, as well as playing archeologist and construction worker with the same girl friend. It is only since he got into regular public school (head start didn’t manage it) that he has become somewhat gender conscientious and that as much because we have tried to ensure that he doesn’t get picked on – he still occasionally likes to put on nail polish, but pretty pink is now gauche. He is also rather prone to adding Poly Pocket to his little armies.

I am absolutely certain that if the only option he had for a microscope was a pink one, he would totally rock with it. He really loves having one (not actually pink, because they are cheap now) and I am pretty sure if it were pink with little hearts and ponies painted on, he would deal with it – he might be inclined to paint machine guns and the like on with the ponies, but he is more concerned about having the equipment he wants, than he is about what it looks like.

Ooooh, how about a white microscope and a set of craft paints? That would be really cool…I wanna decorate a microscope with renderings of Ediacarans.

But seriously, know where I can get a sturdy dissecting scope for a nine year old and a four year old?

Gonna have to disagree with the “always fashionable” part though, unless it’s being worn by Pascale.

and to take it a step further, a pink microscope is nothing when compared to a real asskicking female scientist role model.

It’s hard to distinguish what we like because we really truly like it and what we like because we’ve been manipulated. I don’t have the answers for how to tease out which is which, but it is going to start with me offering any future offspring of mine, or any other kids I encounter for that matter, a wide variety of options (like my mom offered me when I was little) and let them pick instead of preselecting things based on gender.