Lynn Poole explains that "microscope" is from the two Greek words "mikros," small, and "skopos," a watcher. He notes that Dutch Antony Van Leeuwenhoek and English Robert Hooke were both instrumental in the development of the instrument and that Charles A. Spencer was America's first microscope maker. Dr. Schwartz, using the RCA Vidicon (a microscope connected to a television monitor), shows slides of water specimens from ponds in New York and New Jersey. The organisms he identifies include one-celled blepharisma and stentor, which he compares to the multi-celled rotifer, the plant spirogyra, diatoms, and the beating heart of a daphnia or water flea. Dr. Schwartz also shows a replica of Van Leeuwenhoek's microscope and his drawings of bacteria, and he demonstrates how to make a slide for viewing.

Biologist George Schwartz explains how the microprojector microscope, which he developed, displays the microcosm in a drop of water on a television monitor. He shows slides of the shells of diatoms, the basic food source in fresh and salt water; amoeba, which move by protoplasmic flow; blepharisma, a one-celled organism; rotifers, multi-celled organisms; and euglena, used in anemia research because of their sensitivity to vitamin B-12. Mr. Schwartz discusses producers (such as diatoms), consumers (animals), and reducers (bacteria, fungi, mold) and shows a diagram of a food pyramid of the producers and consumers in Antarctic waters. A film of a microdissection apparatus introduces new ways to research microscopic life.