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I decided to ask a rather qualitative question: what do different types of crystalline materials look like?  How do their crystal shapes and patterns differ?

To answer this question, I looked at very small amounts of table salt, splenda, raw crystalized honey, and fine sugar under the foldscope.  Here are pictures of my findings in that order!

From these pictures, I can conclude that although different shaped crystals, both salt and sugar have very geometric and organized crystals, with sugar having especially square ones. We can also see recurring crystalline patterns within the raw honey, although they do seem to be less structured and individual and more melded together.  Splenda seems to have an altogether different pattern, if it has any, and is more irregular.  Some questions this leaves me with include: why do these materials’ structures differ? Could this contribute to their differences in taste, texture, and solubility/chemical properties?