Summary
To solidify students’ conceptualization of cells, students build a model of a cell in a ziplock bag using polyvinyl alcohol slime as cytoplasm. So far, students’ experience with cells has been 2 dimensional – diagrams and microscopic slides. The 3 dimensional nature of cells comes to life as students use everyday objects to represent the many parts of a cell. In addition, students can use this activity to develop a sense of scale, calculating how big a human would be if the ziplock bag cell model were really the size of a cheek cell.
Objectives
Can build a three dimensional scale model of a cell.
Can name and describe the function of certain plant and animal cell organelles.
Can draw and label a picture of plant and animal cells.
Can recognize that all living things are made of cells.
Can use proportions and ratios to calculate the size of a person made of ziplock bag sized cells.
Can begin to use the metric system of measurement.
Vocabulary
Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)
Borax
Polymer
Cell
Organelle
Cell membrane
Cell wall
Cytoplasm or cytosol
Nucleus
DNA
Chloroplast
Mitochondria
Ribosome
Golgi apparatus
Endoplasmic reticulum
Vacuole
Lysosome
Scientific notation
Metric system
