Student Exploration: Cell Types
Directions: Follow the instructions to go through the simulation. Respond to the questions and prompts in the orange boxes.
Vocabulary: ATP, bacteria, carbon dioxide (CO2), cell, cellular respiration, compound light microscope, eukaryote, multicellular, muscle ...
Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)
1. How do you know if something is alive? Describe some of the characteristics of living things.
cells, order, response to environment, reproduction, and evolution
2. Humans, plants and mushrooms are all alive. What do these organisms have in common?
growth, they have more than one cell, energy storage
Gizmo Warm-up
In the Cell Types Gizmo, you will use a light microscope to compare and contrast
different samples. On the LANDSCAPE tab, click on the Elodea leaf. (Turn on Show all
samples if you can’t find it.) Switch to the MICROSCOPE tab to observe the sample as it
would appear under the microscope. By default, this microscope is using 40x
magnification.
1. Drag the Coarse focus slider until the sample is focused as well as possible. Then, improve the focus
with the Fine focus slider. What do you see?
the cells are lined up together very nicely and tightly, they are organized
2. Select the 400x magnification. If necessary, adjust the fine focus. Now, what do you see?
in each cell there are tiny organelles
The individual chambers you see are cells, the smallest functional unit of an organism.
, Get the Gizmo ready:
Activity A: ● On the LANDSCAPE tab, click on the woman’s
Observing cells right arm to choose the Human skin sample.
● Select the MICROSCOPE tab.
Introduction: Complex organisms are made up of smaller units, called cells. Most cells are too small to be
seen by the naked eye. Microscopes are used to magnify small objects, so here you will use a compound
light microscope to observe the cells of different organisms.
Question: What are similarities and differences between cells from different organisms?
● There are different type of cells in each organism and they act and have different jobs/functions in
each organism. They are similar because cells make up organisms
1. Match: Read about each microscope part. Match the description to the part on the diagram.
B Stage: Platform where a slide is placed.
Eye piece: Lens at the top of the microscope that the user
A looks through. This lens most commonly magnifies a
sample by 10x.
C Coarse focus knob: Large knob that moves the stage up
and down to focus the sample.
D Fine focus knob: Small knob that moves the stage over a
short distance to refine the focus.
Objective lens: A second lens that further magnifies the
sample. Microscopes usually have several objective
E lenses with different magnifications. The total
magnification is the product of the eyepiece magnification
and the objective lens magnification.
F Slide: A rectangular piece of glass upon which a sample is
mounted for viewing under a microscope.
2. Manipulate: With 40x selected, use the Coarse and Fine focus sliders to focus on the sample. Then,
choose 400x and focus on the sample using the Fine focus slider.
A. Which focus knob is easier to use at 40x? 400x? coarse focus knob for 40x and fine
focus knob for 400x
B. Turn on Show labels. What structures can you all the little organelles
see in human skin cells?
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