Science Fields and Cell Biology

This class started with an activity I had planned for the previous class but we ran out of time.  We talked about the many fields of science and basically who studies what.  Here is a page that summarizes a few science fields we discussed.

We played a quiz show about these types of scientists:

1.  Biologist -- studies life

2.  Physicist -- studies matter, its movement and properties

3.  Astronomer -- studies outer space and what's out there

4.  Geologist -- studies the earth, including volcanoes and rocks

5.  Archaeologist -- studies ancient humans and what they did

6.  Botanist -- studies plants

7.  Meteorologist -- studies the weather

8.  Chemist -- studies chemicals and how they interact and change

9.  Ecologist -- studies systems of living things and non-living things

10.  Psychologist -- studies the human mind and how people think, behave, and perceive

11.  Sociologist -- studies groups of people and what they do as small or large groups, including government

12.  Entomologist -- studies insects (bugs)

13.  Limnologist -- studies freshwater bodies, like lakes, rivers, and streams

14.  Zoologist -- studies animals

15.  Anthropologist -- studies humans and human ancestors

16.  Paleontologist -- studies ancient life forms and fossils, including dinosaurs

17.  Cosmologist -- studies how the universe began

18.  Oceanographer -- studies the oceans

Then, we moved on to cell biology.  We are made of cells, and there are organisms such as bacteria that are just one cell.  We discussed the parts of a cell:

Plasma membrane - like skin, keeps insides in

Cytoplasm -- like jelly, everything floats in it

Nucleus -- contains DNA, the blueprint for the organism

Endoplasmic reticulum -- near the nucleus, when new proteins get made

Golgi -- holds and packages new proteins

Ribosome -- makes new proteins by reading the blueprint

Lysosome -- like a garbage can, breaks down waste

Mitochondria -- powerhouse, makes ATP energy for the cell from sugar

Vacuole -- only in plant cells, empty space that holds water

Cell wall -- only in plant cells, rigid wall around the cell

Nucleolus -- inside the nucleus, contains the DNA

The games we played were:

1.  Cell Craft, an excellent free game that teaches cell biology by having you navigate as a cell and collect what you need.

2.  Cell Explorer, another good game about cell organelles.  Both of these can take a little while to load at first.

Here are two sites with games for testing cell biology knowledge:

Biology Junction
The Biological Cell

I encourage kids who like the topic and want to learn more to try these quizzes.