Apologia Anatomy & Physiology: Unit One - Building a Cell

We have been really enjoying the Apologia Science Curriculum. Melissa has grasped so much of the material using the 'hands on' approach.

Here is an edible cell that she made to demonstrate all the organelles that are in a cell.

We started off with a pile of candy.....

 

We used the following candies to represent various organelles:

 

jelly beans for mitochondria (of course we had to have more than one!)

Skittles for lysosomes

Smarties made up a Golgi body

Fruit Roll Up cut into the shape of an endoplasmic reticulum

Plenty of Nerds ribosomes

Twizzler Pull and Peels for centrioles

A large fireball for the nucleus

 

The cytoplasm, or cell body - the free flowing gel-like substance that the organelles move through, was made of yellow jello mixed with Knox gelatin to toughen it up.

 

After mixing the jello up, spraying a bowl with Canola spray, and placing the jello mix in it, we allowed the jello to harden. Melissa prepared all her 'organelles', and told me about each one and what it's purpose in the cell is.  When the jello was firm, she added all her candy pieces and turned the jello out onto a plate.

 

Here's a closeup of our cell.

 

You can see the nucleus very well in this picture:

 



 

Here is a picture of the finished project.

 

 

What did Melissa learn from this? Not only did she learn the various functions of cells, but the biggest thing she took away from this project, and wrote about in her journal, was that she was amazed how many different things are packed into a cell, and how much work they accomplish. There is a lot going on that we cannot even see!

 

The funny thing....after using all this candy in such a scientific way, to build a cell....Melissa had no interest in actually eating her cell!

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