Inside one cell
This is room three. Room one, Alive or Not?, has the two films and the seven signs of life. Room two, Two Kinds of Cells, has prokaryotes and eukaryotes, the three domains, and plant cells beside animal cells. Here you go inside one eukaryotic cell, an animal cell, and learn its parts by name, by job, and by hand.
If you have not watched the films, watch them first; every part below appears in them.
The cell, part by part
Below is a map of one cell, drawn as a map and not to scale. It has four settings. Parts: tap any part, or its name, to learn what it does. Make a protein: do the cell's work with your own hands. Find it and Name it: practice, with the labels hidden.
Parts
A map, not a photograph, and not to scale: a real ribosome is far smaller than the nucleus. Real insulin is made of 51 amino acids, in two chains joined together; the one you make here has four, to learn the moves.
Also on the map
- cytoplasm
- The thick fluid that fills the cell. Every part sits in it.
- cytoskeleton
- The cell's scaffold and roads: rods and threads made of protein. Carriers walk along them. The walking figure in the film was on one.
- pore
- An opening in the nucleus's double skin. Messages go out through the pores; ribosomes leave through them too.
Next, room four: Growing It Back, how some animals regrow a lost leg, and what scientists are learning. Back to room one: Alive or Not? Room two: Two Kinds of Cells.
← Science at The People’s Share
The same ground as test questions: Look Again, Quiz 9: The Cell