Cells make up every living thing. Take a look at all the living things you can see just in your house. You can start off with you and your family. If you have any pets, be sure to include them. Don’t forget about houseplants as well – they’re alive. Now take a walk outside. You’ll likely see many more plants, as well as animals like birds and insects. Now imagine if all those living things were gone. That’s how it would be if there were no cells, because cells are what all those living things are made of.
Animals, plants and other living things look different, and contain many different kinds of cells, but when you get down to it, all of us are just a bunch of cells – and that makes cells pretty much the most important thing when it comes to life!
Here’s a video on the difference between animal and plant cells:
Are you wondering what all the different organelles are inside the cell? Here’s a video that goes into all the cool detail (note – this video is more for advanced students):
Now pull out your science journal! As you watch this video below, write down the organelles you see and describe what you think is happening.
What’s going on?
The endoplasmic reticulum, shown in red, transports proteins to the Golgi Apparatus, shown in blue. The Golgi Apparatus packages proteins and sends them where they are needed, either in the cell, or to the cell membrane for transport out of the cell.
I didn’t realize they were so hard to find! You can find them around still on ebay and Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&text=WILD+GOOSE+COMPANY&search-alias=books&field-author=WILD+GOOSE+COMPANY&sort=relevancerank There are several authors, and they published several dozen books.
For cells, you can look at any standard HS textbook – it will have all the usual info that you need for cell identification included.
You mention Wild Goose Books for middle school… Who is the author?
Hi Aurora,
I was just wondering what the organelle (?) in the top left corner is, and what it is doing? (The one like a star).
Thanks!
Juliette
Thank you for your quick response! I will take a look for the books you mentioned, you never know what you can find on the internet! We decided to check out the lessons on using a microscope while I look for information on cells, we figure it will be pretty useful for trying to get a good look at cells.
Great question! At this time, we’ve only got the easy stuff in the earlier grades and then the more advanced stuff later on, as you’ve found. We do mostly physics and chemistry, since those are the big building blocks in science (with biology being built on those two), so our offering for biology isn’t as extensive as it is for these first two areas. The Wild Goose books are great for biology, but they are out of print. If I find something good on cells, I’ll post it right to the main page for you to view. I am sorry I couldn’t be of more help! 🙂
Hi ,
I have a 5th grader who is interested in learning about cells. We clicked on the Life Science I topic, the video on touring the cell was a bit advanced for him. The person in the video said remember back in 7th grade science so we headed here, but it’s the same video as in the more advanced topic… Went to 2nd grade life science, been there done that already 😉 So is there somewhere between the two extremes? We have an iPad app that explains cells pretty well and some great reading material… He I learns best from audio visuals so we where hoping for some lessons here. Can I ask for guidance please on whether there is anywhere on this site that I’ve over looked for lessons on cells for an enthusiastic 5th grader?
Thanks!
Sure thing! What sort of thing do you want to know? Wiki has lots of great information to get you started… and we do experiments in Units 16-19 that use cells in the experiments. 🙂 Let me know how I can help you further.
Dear Aurora, hi this is Max id like to dig deeper in cells can you give me some more facts.
thanks,
Max
I’m glad you were able to see some protozoa when you added the yeast. There are a huge variety of organisms classified as protozoa. Based on what you describe, my thought is that the two organisms you describe in question 1 are protozoa and the one from question 2 is more likely a water droplet or some other imperfection in the slide. But it’s hard to know without seeing them. The web site http://www.pirx.com/droplet/gallery.html has good images of what various protozoa look like. You might enjoy trying to match what you see under the microscope to the images on the site. It sounds like you have quite a collection.
As far as cleaning your lens, you’ll want to use a cleaning tissue called a KimWipe. If you do a google search you can find lots of places to buy these online. They also sell them in some art stores. When cleaning, always swipe in one direction, rather than making a circular motion. If the lens is still dirty and you need a liquid, try distilled water first. If that doesn’t work, you can try isopropyl alcohol, but for the experiment you’ve done, that’s probably overkill.
Your idea of adding more yeast to our grass mixture did the trick, thanks.
Now I have some questions for you:
1. Depending on the focus of the 40/.065 lens, we saw pepper sized critters swimming and also (at a slightly different focus level) saw larger ones, sort of the size of a drop of water compared to the pepper ones. Are they both protozoa?
2. We also saw what seemed somewhat like ghost critters that are hard to describe. They seemed to be at a level above the main protozoa level (kind of like a higher layer of clouds moving on their own), they were skinny, stringy shaped, kind of ghostly/see through, and seemed to have sections to them and would float across the field of vision pretty quickly. We couldn’t figure out if they were actual critters, or extraneous stuff on a lens, etc. Any idea what they might be?
3. Our slide was a little sloppy, because at one point as I tried to move the lens close to the slide (eying it so it wouldn’t touch) I got too close and got the slide water (some of which must have been on top of the lens cover) on the lens. (are you wincing as you read this??) What would you recommend I use to clean the lens? The water was our protozoa water so I am assuming I may need to use rubbing alcohol with a special lens wipe of some sort?
Thank you!
Karen
Many protozoa have a very foul odor. One of the neat things about this experiment is that everyone will have different types of protozoa. These tiny organisms are in the grass, lying dormant until conditions improve. By adding water and yeast (an excellent food source) you gave them great conditions in which to thrive. If the protozoa in your grass are especially smelly, you can always move the experiment outside. As far as finding a good sample, take the sample from the middle of the container. If you still can’t get anything, try adding more yeast. If your protozoa have depleted their food supply, they may need more to come out of dormancy again.
We are doing the protozoa in the grass experiment, and have two questions: 1. This stuff smells REALLY stinky – what in the world causes such a horrid smell? This is like raw sewage, and is amazing when you figure it’s just dead grass, water, and yeast! 2. After 24 hours we were able to find little critters swimming around in our slides. But, after 48 hours, and today after 1 week, we can’t find anything moving. Is there a certain place we should be getting the sample from? I would have thought it would get easier to find things after more time had elapsed. Thank you!
Thanks – the filename was wrong. It should work for you now. Sorry for the trouble!
Yes, it would help if you knew what I was talking about…that is what happens when you start previewing lessons in the middle of the night. It is a technical issue. The screen reads: “Video not found or access denied.” We are not having trouble viewing any of the other videos.
Do you mean you don’t like it, or it doesn’t play? Is it a technical issue? If so, I can help you better if you describe EXACTLY what you see happening.
This video isn’t working for us.