The Ostracod Society

October 16 2025: Our mission and Overview

The Ostracod Society seeks to be a local home to those with a passion for microscopy. Our name comes from the "seed shrimp," the ostracod: a small crustacean with a bivalve shell. I watched one move through the lense of a compound microscope, and with one hand would figit with the focus of the focus or move the track to keep pace, and with the other hand I blindly sketched out its rough shape and tenticles. Every change I made revealed more details untill at last my teacher showed me how to see its colors. The finished sketch was more like ten seperate viewings layered over each other, and together they gave a rough aproximation of what I had seen. It was beutiful.

That is the source of my passion! A passion which inexperienced and naive but one that I hope to grow through this club. I still need to look into scheduling out first meeting. Balancing high school classes with college ones takes a lot of my time away(although it is so worth it with all the amazing things I've learned). Tommorow I could be free to ask the Shepherd library about hosting but I won't have too much time. I'll be attending a scientific convention as the last part of my internship with Project SEED, and I predict I will spend the entire time wanting to die. Wish me good luck!

October 15, 2025: Hello!

The Ostracod Society is the new and proud microscopy club for Isabella County, Michigan. We'll be having our first meeting soon! There's still a lot of work to be done setting this thing up but we hope to have the site operable by November 15th(one month from now!). Who we are and what we do will be discused soon. Fundraising for equitment will begin soon, but I can go ahead and say our end goal will be two compounding microscopes and one stereo microscope. More information to follow. Cheers!