Congrats to 5th hour Cytoskeleton and 6th hour Chloroplasts! In what was a well fought campaign these two organelles came out on top with the most votes. They have won themselves a one year term of "Most Important Organelle."
Oh my goodness, with grades and our awesome project in this class I am so sorry that I ran out of time to get the blog up to date. If your students didn’t tell you, we had some of the organelles in the campaign get on Twitter to converse back and forth with each other. These organelle conversations were seen by Biologists in France and England and the scientists were so excited that they got started in on the tweets. Much of the conversation can be seen at #organellewars. One of the scientists blogged about it, another talked about the project on BBC radio and a third got us a copy of the BBC cell special that was shown in Europe. It is crazy how small our world is with the technology we have!
Link to the Blog: http://www.plantcellbiology.com/2012/10/the-organelle-presidential-campaign-2012/
Link to the BBC Radio Segment: (Discussions about our project begins at about 6:10 mark)
http://drmolecule.org/2012/10/23/organellewars-a-fun-school-project-in-cell-biology/
As for what happened in the last two weeks let’s check in with our guest authors!
Monday 10/22/12:
Megan B from 5th hour says…
Today we spent the whole period working on campaigning for our Organelle Wars. We each were assigned a specific organelle from a wide variety of organelles, such as the cytoskeleton, ribosomes, cell wall, lysosomes, and junctions. Each group is supposed to provide enough information for the students to fully understand the functions of their organelle. Along with that, they are supposed to create a "smear" poster to smear other organelles, proving that their specific cell is the best out of all. That also means that groups are supposed to have enough knowledge on their organelle, that they can successfully deflect any smears that come their way. There was not any assigned homework, just to work on the project.
Oh my goodness, with grades and our awesome project in this class I am so sorry that I ran out of time to get the blog up to date. If your students didn’t tell you, we had some of the organelles in the campaign get on Twitter to converse back and forth with each other. These organelle conversations were seen by Biologists in France and England and the scientists were so excited that they got started in on the tweets. Much of the conversation can be seen at #organellewars. One of the scientists blogged about it, another talked about the project on BBC radio and a third got us a copy of the BBC cell special that was shown in Europe. It is crazy how small our world is with the technology we have!
Link to the Blog: http://www.plantcellbiology.com/2012/10/the-organelle-presidential-campaign-2012/
Link to the BBC Radio Segment: (Discussions about our project begins at about 6:10 mark)
http://drmolecule.org/2012/10/23/organellewars-a-fun-school-project-in-cell-biology/
As for what happened in the last two weeks let’s check in with our guest authors!
Monday 10/22/12:
Megan B from 5th hour says…
Today we spent the whole period working on campaigning for our Organelle Wars. We each were assigned a specific organelle from a wide variety of organelles, such as the cytoskeleton, ribosomes, cell wall, lysosomes, and junctions. Each group is supposed to provide enough information for the students to fully understand the functions of their organelle. Along with that, they are supposed to create a "smear" poster to smear other organelles, proving that their specific cell is the best out of all. That also means that groups are supposed to have enough knowledge on their organelle, that they can successfully deflect any smears that come their way. There was not any assigned homework, just to work on the project.
Tuesday 10/23/12:
From James F in 6th hour…
Today, we did a lab covering the difference between plant and animal cells. For the animal cells, we used our very own cheek cells! As for the plant cells, we created a wet mount of an elodea leaf. We each received a packet to draw and fill out the information we figured out. This included drawing and labeling each cell. Actually looking at both cells in real life really helped me learn some differences between plant and animal cells. Seeing the difference in shape was really cool! Our homework was to finish the lab. Also included in the lab was a page dealing with the diameters of the field of views.
Test Question: Label different parts of plant and animal cells from looking at pictures of plant and animal cells (cell membrane, cell wall, chloroplasts, cytoplasm, nucleus).
Wednesday 10/24/12:
According to Bobby in 5th hour…
We took pop quiz on the organelles and their functions and went through and fixed it.
We also labeled a diagram of a cell and corrected it. The most important thing that we learned was the locations of all the organelles in the cell. The coolest thing we learned was the locations of our organelles inside the cell. Our homework was a worksheet where we had organelles and we had to write their function, whether or not they are prokaryotic animal or plant cells.
From James F in 6th hour…
Today, we did a lab covering the difference between plant and animal cells. For the animal cells, we used our very own cheek cells! As for the plant cells, we created a wet mount of an elodea leaf. We each received a packet to draw and fill out the information we figured out. This included drawing and labeling each cell. Actually looking at both cells in real life really helped me learn some differences between plant and animal cells. Seeing the difference in shape was really cool! Our homework was to finish the lab. Also included in the lab was a page dealing with the diameters of the field of views.
Test Question: Label different parts of plant and animal cells from looking at pictures of plant and animal cells (cell membrane, cell wall, chloroplasts, cytoplasm, nucleus).
Wednesday 10/24/12:
According to Bobby in 5th hour…
We took pop quiz on the organelles and their functions and went through and fixed it.
We also labeled a diagram of a cell and corrected it. The most important thing that we learned was the locations of all the organelles in the cell. The coolest thing we learned was the locations of our organelles inside the cell. Our homework was a worksheet where we had organelles and we had to write their function, whether or not they are prokaryotic animal or plant cells.
Thursday 10/25/12:
Thanks to Tiffany from 5th hour…
The Organelle campaign is still going and every wall is filled with various organelle smears and posters. Don't forget that the speeches are on Monday and Tuesday of next week! Today Mr. Graba subbed for the class. We saw the video on cells, organelles and viruses. It starts off with a few general descriptions of organelles and their functions. FUN FACT: Did you know, every cell has 6ft of DNA?!? Then a virus attacks the cell. A cell has many defenses against viruses. The first obstacle are the white blood cells and their antibodies. If the virus makes it past, it still has to face the cell membrane and numerous other organelles in the cytoplasm to reach the nuclear membrane. A virus's ultimate goal is to get into the nucleus and make copies of it's own DNA and multiply. Today's test question is... What is the function of ribosomes, and in what types of cells are they found in (Prokaryotic, Plant, animal)? The homework is to finish the Organelle worksheet given on Wednesday. Organelle speeches are on Monday and Tuesday.
GO MITOCHONDRIA!! Power house of the cell! (&) <-- Mitochondria ^.^
Thanks to Tiffany from 5th hour…
The Organelle campaign is still going and every wall is filled with various organelle smears and posters. Don't forget that the speeches are on Monday and Tuesday of next week! Today Mr. Graba subbed for the class. We saw the video on cells, organelles and viruses. It starts off with a few general descriptions of organelles and their functions. FUN FACT: Did you know, every cell has 6ft of DNA?!? Then a virus attacks the cell. A cell has many defenses against viruses. The first obstacle are the white blood cells and their antibodies. If the virus makes it past, it still has to face the cell membrane and numerous other organelles in the cytoplasm to reach the nuclear membrane. A virus's ultimate goal is to get into the nucleus and make copies of it's own DNA and multiply. Today's test question is... What is the function of ribosomes, and in what types of cells are they found in (Prokaryotic, Plant, animal)? The homework is to finish the Organelle worksheet given on Wednesday. Organelle speeches are on Monday and Tuesday.
GO MITOCHONDRIA!! Power house of the cell! (&) <-- Mitochondria ^.^
Friday 10/26/12:
Just in from Lauren G in 5th hour…
Today in class, we started off by handing in our cell video sheets. We started this video on Thursday and we will complete it next Wednesday. Next, Mrs.Giegler checked to see if our organelle function sheet was completed. Then, we were given The Cell Theory worksheet. We worked on this worksheet in class, highlighting important facts and answering questions on the history of the microscope and cell theory. We also discussed our organelle project. You should be able to present your speech on Monday, October 29th and have all your campaign promoters in your manilla folder. At the end of class, we played an organelle review game. We will be having a test on organelles and cell theory on Wednesday, October 31st. Test qustion: Name all the organelles that are present in prokaryotic cells.
Just in from Lauren G in 5th hour…
Today in class, we started off by handing in our cell video sheets. We started this video on Thursday and we will complete it next Wednesday. Next, Mrs.Giegler checked to see if our organelle function sheet was completed. Then, we were given The Cell Theory worksheet. We worked on this worksheet in class, highlighting important facts and answering questions on the history of the microscope and cell theory. We also discussed our organelle project. You should be able to present your speech on Monday, October 29th and have all your campaign promoters in your manilla folder. At the end of class, we played an organelle review game. We will be having a test on organelles and cell theory on Wednesday, October 31st. Test qustion: Name all the organelles that are present in prokaryotic cells.
Monday 10/29/12:1st quarter ended on Friday so we took some time and went over grades. Then it was time to start the presentations. I never thought I would sit in a high school class where the students started to get sick of cupcakes but many of the organelles knew that the way to the voters heart was through their stomach!
According to Emily H from 5th hour...
Today in class we started out by having 5 minutes to regroup with out organelle war partners on our projects. Then we started with the presentations. The presentations that went were the nucleus (Lauren and Natasha), the golgi body (Ken and Andrij), the Chloroplasts (Grace and Emily), and the cell membrane (Lucas and Bruce). Here were the main focuses on each presentation:
The nucleus- Nucleus is the control center and has instructions for organinsms to live.
The golgi body- The golgi body is the USPS for cells and contains cataclysts.
The Chloroplasts- This is where the process of photosynthesis takes place.
The Cell Membrane- Prevents infections from entering our cells and is the barrier from the outside world.
The most interesting part of class was seeing who came up with creative ways to campaign for their organelle. The homework was study for the quiz on wednesday. You could do this by studying the review game packet and the review we eventually got on tuesday. A test question from today could be:
Q:Are Golgi Bodies found in prokaryotic cells?
A: No, only in eukaryotic cells. (Plant and Animal Cells)
According to Christine H from 6th hour...
we officially started our Most Important Organelle campaign! After two weeks of research and preparations we were finally able to see our classmates presentations and the battle began. We learned about organelles such as lysosomes, the endoplasmic recticulum,and ribosomes. We received great information from each of the contestants and some of them even gave incentives to vote for them!
Tuesday 10/30/12:
Today we continued with the presentations. Students were all very well prepared and excited to have to opportunity to campaign for their organelle!
Wednesday 10/31/12:
This just in from Pranathi K. from 6th hour...
On Halloween we took our quiz on organelles. We also had to take an egg and measure its mass. We had to record the mass in our science notebooks or anywhere it wont get lost. After that we measured 150mL of vinegar and put the egg in it. Lastly we wrote down our observations and fit in a presentation of the organelle campaign. We did not have any homework, but we are voting for the best organelle tomorrow!
According to Emily H from 5th hour...
Today in class we started out by having 5 minutes to regroup with out organelle war partners on our projects. Then we started with the presentations. The presentations that went were the nucleus (Lauren and Natasha), the golgi body (Ken and Andrij), the Chloroplasts (Grace and Emily), and the cell membrane (Lucas and Bruce). Here were the main focuses on each presentation:
The nucleus- Nucleus is the control center and has instructions for organinsms to live.
The golgi body- The golgi body is the USPS for cells and contains cataclysts.
The Chloroplasts- This is where the process of photosynthesis takes place.
The Cell Membrane- Prevents infections from entering our cells and is the barrier from the outside world.
The most interesting part of class was seeing who came up with creative ways to campaign for their organelle. The homework was study for the quiz on wednesday. You could do this by studying the review game packet and the review we eventually got on tuesday. A test question from today could be:
Q:Are Golgi Bodies found in prokaryotic cells?
A: No, only in eukaryotic cells. (Plant and Animal Cells)
According to Christine H from 6th hour...
we officially started our Most Important Organelle campaign! After two weeks of research and preparations we were finally able to see our classmates presentations and the battle began. We learned about organelles such as lysosomes, the endoplasmic recticulum,and ribosomes. We received great information from each of the contestants and some of them even gave incentives to vote for them!
Tuesday 10/30/12:
Today we continued with the presentations. Students were all very well prepared and excited to have to opportunity to campaign for their organelle!
Wednesday 10/31/12:
This just in from Pranathi K. from 6th hour...
On Halloween we took our quiz on organelles. We also had to take an egg and measure its mass. We had to record the mass in our science notebooks or anywhere it wont get lost. After that we measured 150mL of vinegar and put the egg in it. Lastly we wrote down our observations and fit in a presentation of the organelle campaign. We did not have any homework, but we are voting for the best organelle tomorrow!
Thursday 11/1/12:
Imama K from 6th hour says...
Today in class, we all put in our votes for the organelle wars election (chloroplast won first place) and cleaned out our flyers. If you weren't there, make sure to take down all of your flyers because Mrs. Giegler is subtracting one point each flyer she finds lying around from your quiz score. (Mrs G here...I think that this should be the case for the real politic election too! Instead of votes, fines for any signs still littering street corners!) We also got our cell quizzes back. Afterwards, we took notes on solutes/solvents, and the definitions of terms such as permeable, impermeable, semipermeable, etc. The most important thing we learned were the definitions for the cell membrane. The coolest part of class was the election! There was no homework. A test question that could be asked from today: Why must a cell membrane be selective? (Answer: to maintain homeostasis, let in only necessary molecules, and to remove waste.)
Friday 11/2/12:
Andrij K from 5th hour tells us...
First, we finished part 2 in the egg cell experiment by washing the egg, weighing it, and recording the difference. Then we finished our notes on permeable, semipermeable, and impermeable membranes and diffusion. The most important thing I learned was that diffusion occurs naturally and doesn't take any energy. This was demonstrated by the inverted erlenmeyer flask experiment and the semipermeable membrane.The coolest part of class was when you sprayed the perfume in the air and we watched it diffuse and saturate the whole class.We didn't have any homework over the weekend.What do ribosomes do? (make proteins for the cell)
and Zach K from 6th adds...
Today in class we took notes about diffusion, did a demo that created a pink lava lamp effect, and did part of our egg experiment. Diffusion is when particles move from a high concentration to a low concentration. During the demo two beakers were put together one if the has ammonia and when the membranes collided a hot pink liquid was made. During the egg experiment we took the eggs out of the vinegar and put them into karo oil. It's very sticky! The most important thing we learned during class was diffusion and the coolest part was seeing the egg after we took it out of the vinegar. Their was no homework.
Thanks to everyone for such great summaries!
What to look for...
Monday 11/5/12:
Today we are going to take a look at our eggs, take their mass and the volume of the karo syrup and then put them in DeIonized water for the night. We are going to do a second lab where we will be seeing what molecules move through a semi permeable membrane called dialysis tubing. The students will have to recall what the indicators Benedict's Biurets and Iodine tell us!
Students should be finishing up the questions to the dialysis tube lab and watch a video about the cell membrane which will be posted on the Cell Unit Page of this website.
Tuesday 11/6/12:
Today we will finish the egg lab and see what the DI water did to it. Then we will finish up some notes about hypotonic, hypertonic and isotonic solutions and active transport. I will also go over any questions that students have about the cell membrane. If we have time today, we will take a look at some onion cells that have been soaking in salt water to see plasmolysis.
The homework will be to finish the egg lab and start reviewing for the test.
Wednesday 11/7/12:
Today we are going to review. Students will try to recall all of the information they can about different topics and we will go over any questions that students have.
Thursday 11/8/12:
We will take our Cell & Cell Transport test today. It will cover all of the information about the organelles, cell theory and diffusion and active transport.
Friday 11/9/12:
Institute Day - Enjoy the day off! :)
Today we are going to take a look at our eggs, take their mass and the volume of the karo syrup and then put them in DeIonized water for the night. We are going to do a second lab where we will be seeing what molecules move through a semi permeable membrane called dialysis tubing. The students will have to recall what the indicators Benedict's Biurets and Iodine tell us!
Students should be finishing up the questions to the dialysis tube lab and watch a video about the cell membrane which will be posted on the Cell Unit Page of this website.
Tuesday 11/6/12:
Today we will finish the egg lab and see what the DI water did to it. Then we will finish up some notes about hypotonic, hypertonic and isotonic solutions and active transport. I will also go over any questions that students have about the cell membrane. If we have time today, we will take a look at some onion cells that have been soaking in salt water to see plasmolysis.
The homework will be to finish the egg lab and start reviewing for the test.
Wednesday 11/7/12:
Today we are going to review. Students will try to recall all of the information they can about different topics and we will go over any questions that students have.
Thursday 11/8/12:
We will take our Cell & Cell Transport test today. It will cover all of the information about the organelles, cell theory and diffusion and active transport.
Friday 11/9/12:
Institute Day - Enjoy the day off! :)