Peter Nelson    Biology I    Period 1

Approximate time: 50 minutes

Objective: The student will differentiate between plant and animal cells and identify the structures central to plant cells. (Biology 3.b.c)

Warm-up: Quiz based on Tuesday’s lesson
Set:

OK, take two minutes to list all of the differences that you can think of between plants and animals. After they are finished, ask them to take two minutes to list all of the differences that cells might have to account for those differences. Can we just go and get our food (go to the store, etc) Can plants?

Procedure:

1) Warm-up

2) Set

3) Draw a plant on the board and an animal on the board. Underneath the appropriate picture write “plant” and “animal” and have students share first their difference and then their cell differences. Maybe have them come up and write it.

4) Explain differences on the board and give remaining differences, with explanation, that students don’t have. This can be done on the whiteboard.

Cell Wall: Outside the cell membrane. Helps support and protect the plant. How might a cell wall help the plant cell? Prevents excessive uptake of water.

Vacuoles: Store enzymes and wastes. Can be up to 90 percent of a plant’s volume. Can be beneficial in other ways as well. Ask a couple of students what their favorite foods are. Ask what their least favorite foods are. Now ask if they would keep eating a particular type of their favorite food if it tasted like their least favorite food. In plants, sometimes the vacuoles store poisons that are used as a defense against plant-eating animals.

Plastids: Organelles surrounded by two membranes that also contain DNA.  Some contain compounds called pigments that absorb light.

5) Ask them what they think might be the most familiar type of plastid in plants. (chloroplast).

Chloroplasts:  Organelles in plants that convert light energy into chemical energy. Where else are they going to get their energy? They need the sun! Could you just live outside, not move, and live like a plant does? They contain large amounts of green pigment. Different pigments in other types of plastids is what gives other plants and flowers different colors.

6. Lysosomes: are not in plant cells. (centrioles also aren't usually in plant cells)

7. Flagella: are not in plant cells.

5) Have student draw a venn diagram (5 min)

6) Fill in the venn diagram on the board.

7) Quiz highlighting at least three differences between animal cells and plant cells. Give organelle and function.

8) Drawing game. Pictionary. Explain the rules (drawer cannot talk. use only images. students will get one minute and 30 seconds. If the answer is not produced by 1.10, the drawer is allowed to write one word. (not the word given) Winning team gets 10 extra credit points. Examples - plant cell, animal cell, mitochondrion, photosynthesis, vacuole, cell membrane, cell wall, nucleus. Toughies --> diffusion, facilitated diffusion, exocytosis, endocytosis. (for the summer class, have them be one team)

Closure:

Restate objectives: Today we have differentiated between plant and animal cells. Ask each student to give you one difference between plant and animal cells. Tomorrow we will look closer at the cell's organelles. Specifically we will look closer at the cellular membrane. And what exactly "selectively permeable" really means.

Assessment/Evaluation:

Objective: The student will differentiate between plant and animal cells (Biology 3.b)

Informal: The teacher will observe student participation in and enthusiasm for class activities.
Formal: The student will take a graded quiz on the difference between plant and animal cells.