Online digital microscopes for science education
StudyScope turns a shared link into a perfect microscope. Browse a catalog of gigapixel slides, build guided lessons, and explore them together in real time. No broken or lost slides, no broken microscopes, no out-of-focus images, no lost teaching time.
Cancel anytime · Students join without an account ·
A male roundworm in cross section, its reproductive tubules surrounding a flattened intestine.
The instrument
StudyScope is an online digital microscope built for science teachers. Access a full catalog of gigapixel slides, a projector, and guided lessons without the hassle of physical microscopes, now a link away on any device. StudyScope's capabilities include:
Professionally prepared specimens, scanned at full resolution and catalogued with stain, magnification, and searchable tags.
Pan and zoom from the whole specimen down to single cells, always in focus. It stays smooth on school networks and Chromebooks.
Save the slides you teach with, sort them into folders and collections, and keep planning notes attached to each one.
Group slides into ordered lessons and walk through them with students step by step, with private notes only you can see.
Start a session and students join with a room code. They see the slide and step you are on, and one tap jumps them to exactly your view.
Mark up the specimen with annotations that stay anchored at any zoom. Students see them appear as you draw.
Students join by room code or a shared link, in any browser on any device. Nothing to install, and no student personal data collected.
Measure structures in microns and millimetres, calibrated from each slide's own scanner data, with a true-magnification readout and grid overlays.
In the classroom
One subscription covers the whole span of a science class: the projector at the front of the room, the homework students open at home, and the guided lesson where every device in the room follows you. Pick the way that fits the period.
Whole class · One screen
Open a slide and teach from the projector, TV, or smartboard you already have. The whole class studies one perfect gigapixel specimen while you pan, zoom, annotate, and measure in real time, so the structure you are describing is the structure every student is looking at.
Best for · Demos, bell ringers, direct instruction, review
Any device · Anywhere
Go live with exactly the slides you want studied and paste the links into Canvas, Schoology, Google Classroom, or any LMS you run. Students open them at home in any browser on any device, explore the full specimen at their own pace, and need no account and no install.
Best for · Homework, make-up labs, flipped classrooms, exam prep
Every device · Together
Build a lesson with step-by-step instructions students work through on their own screens, plus private teacher notes only you can see to nail the delivery. Go live, draw on the specimen as they watch, and jump the whole room to your exact view the moment you need everyone back.
Best for · Lab periods, inquiry lessons, structure identification
Every method uses the same catalog and the same yearly seat. Students are always free. Get started →
Why go digital
Most microscope lessons are lost to the microscope itself. The cart, the focusing, the queue at the one scope with a decent specimen. Here is how StudyScope compares with the traditional bench scope, station by station, once the instrument stops being the obstacle.
The microscope bench
StudyScope
Wheel out the cart, hand out slides, and spend the opening fifteen minutes focusing thirty scopes. The biology starts when the period is half over.
Send a link. Every screen opens the same specimen, already in perfect focus. Minute one of the period is spent on the science.
One eyepiece at a time. "Come and look at mine" means a queue, a ten-second glimpse, and no way to point at the thing that mattered.
The whole class holds the same gigapixel specimen at once, and one tap brings every student to exactly the view you are describing.
Slide sets chip, fade, and come up one short. The best specimen in the drawer is usually the one that broke last spring.
Professionally prepared, properly stained specimens, scanned once at full resolution. They never fade, never break, and are never out for repair.
Locating the structure you assigned is a skill of its own, which is why half the class ends up proudly studying an air bubble.
Pan and zoom from the whole section down to a single cell without losing focus. Then measure what you find in real microns.
Bulbs, objectives, repairs, and replacement slide sets. A yearly spend that, at its very best, keeps aging equipment usable.
A yearly seat that improves as you hold it: a growing catalog, new lessons and tools with every update, and the students you teach always free.
One yearly seat retires every problem on the bench side. Everything included, and the students you teach are always free. Get started →
Live lessons
Start a live session and the entire class follows along with you. Draw on the specimen and your markings show up on their screens as you make them. Bring every student to your exact view with one tap. They join in seconds with a room code, from a phone, tablet, or the machine in front of them. No apps, no logins for students, ever.
The workflow
Four steps from an empty screen to the class exploring images.
Search the catalog by subject, specimen, or tag and open any slide in the deep-zoom viewer.
Group slides into sections, then add a step for each item a student should note or do, plus private notes only you see.
Share slide links for class use or homework, or start a live session. Students join instantly from their own devices with a room code.
Students can work independently or follow your view and instructions. Draw on the specimen, then jump everyone to your exact view with one tap.
Pricing
No tiers to compare and no features held back. Every seat gets the whole instrument.
per teacher
The price per seat doesn't change, whether it's one teacher or the whole district.
The students you teach are always free. No accounts, no extra charges.
StudyScope is for
A single seat, set up in a couple of minutes.
Cancel anytime · Secure checkout by Stripe
Seats for your staff, bought and renewed together.
Purchase orders and quotes welcome. Talk to us
Already have an activation key or invite code from your school? Redeem it here, no card needed.
Questions
The questions science teachers and department heads ask before bringing StudyScope to their classroom. Answered the way we'd want them answered.
It's a real microscope's output, delivered through the browser. Each StudyScope slide is a physical specimen, professionally prepared and stained. It is scanned once at gigapixel resolution, so a class can pan and zoom from the whole section down to individual cells, always in focus, on any device with a screen. Nothing is simulated: you're looking at real tissue, just without the hardware.
A digital microscope is still hardware: a physical scope with a camera, so a screen replaces the eyepiece but the instrument, the slide drawer, and the single point of view remain. StudyScope removes the instrument entirely. The specimen is scanned once at full resolution and served in the browser, so there is nothing to buy, maintain, or focus, and the whole class explores the same slide at once from any screen.
No. That's deliberate. Students join a live session with a room code, or open a shared link, from any browser. There is nothing to install, no passwords to reset mid-period, and no student personal information is collected, ever. Read the privacy policy →
Any reasonably modern browser: Chromebooks, iPads, phones, and the desktops already in your lab. The viewer is tuned to stay smooth on school networks and modest hardware, because that is what classrooms actually run.
For lessons where the point is to see, identify, and measure structures, yes. It does the job with better specimens and less lost time than most school scope sets. If your curriculum also assesses hands-on microscopy technique, teachers may choose to use both: StudyScope for the seeing, a bench scope for the skill. We would rather tell you that plainly than oversell it.
Professionally prepared specimens across the standard science curriculum, each scanned at full resolution and catalogued with its stain, magnification, and searchable tags. The catalog keeps growing, and you can look through all of it before you sign up. Browse the catalog →
You present from your machine; students join in seconds with a room code. They see the slide and lesson step you are on, watch annotations appear as you draw them, and one tap jumps the whole room to your exact view. Late joiners catch up on everything already drawn.
Yes. Share a slide link and students open it at home in any browser, no account needed. An absent student can walk the same guided path the class did, at their own pace.
One plan, priced per teacher seat, with everything included. No tiers, no features held back. The students you teach are always free. Schools and districts buy seats for their staff together, and purchase orders and quotes are welcome. See pricing →
New slides added to the catalog, new lessons, and a classroom-ready way to use them, in a short note about once a month. Unsubscribe anytime.