Sketches of animal vs plant cells
The animal cell (cheek cells)
The plant cell (red onion skin)
- Using your sketches and the photos you took of your plant and animal cells, explain:
- What do animal cells look like under the microscope? What cell structures are visible? Animal cells look like(purple because of the methylene blue) little floating dots (not close together) under the microscope. The only cell structures that were visible under my microscope was the cytoplasm, the cell membrane and the nucleus.
- What do plant cells look like under the microscope? What cell structures are visible? Plant cells look like bent ovals stuck together under the microscope and the only visible cell structures were the cell membrane and the cytoplasm
- How can you tell plant cells and animal cells apart (if you only see them under the microscope)? From my observations, the way that I could tell plant cells and animal cells apart was from their shapes and how far apart they were from the other cells. The plant cells seemed to be really close together in a bent oval shape whereas the animal cells were spread father apart and their shape was more circular.
- We used methylene blue on the animal cell. Why was it important to treat animal cells with this compound? I think we used methylene blue on the animal cell to stain it so that it was easier to see the cell structures. If we hadn’t done that, it would be hard to tell apart the air bubbles and the real cheek cells.
Why didn’t we use it on the plant cells? I predict that the reason we didn’t use the substance with the plant cells is that the onion skin plant cells were already purple and easy to spot through a microscope. - Reflection:
What did you learn while doing this lab? During this lab, I learned a lot of new things about cells. I got to observe and experience the physical difference between plant and animal cells in person and also I realized that even though we can’t see them with our naked eye, everything is made up of tiny, interesting cells.
What questions arose while doing this lab? What are you curious about? Some of the questions that arose whilst doing this lab were who discovered that everything was made up of cells? Can cells be artificially made? How? Can an object lose cells without having any consequences? Is there a certain amount of cells you need to live and be happy.