Often multiple laser cooling techniques are used in a single experiment to prepare a cold sample of atoms, which is then subsequently manipulated and measured. In a representative experiment a vapor of strontium atoms is generated in a hot oven that exit the oven as an atomic beam. After leaving the oven the atoms are Doppler cooled in two dimensions transverse to their motion to reduce loss of atoms due to divergence of the atomic beam. The atomic beam is then slowed and cooled with a Zeeman slower to optimize the atom loading efficiency into a magneto-optical trap (MOT), which Doppler cools the atoms, that operates on the S 0 → P 1 with lasers at 461 nm. The MOT transitions from using light at 461 nm to using light at 689 nm to drive the S 0 → P 1, which is a narrow transition, to realize even colder atoms. The atoms are then transferred into an optical dipole trap where evaporative cooling gets them to temperatures where they can be effectively loaded into an optical lattice.