Download Cell Project: Possible Organelle Choices: Cell Membrane Lysosome

Cell Project:
Possible Organelle Choices:
Cell Membrane
Lysosome
Nucleus
Mitochondria
Endoplasmic Reticulum
Golgi Apparatus
Ribosomes
Chloroplast
If all of these get picked (this is the big if - there must be more than 8-9 students in your class for this to
happen) and there are still more students that need a topic, you can pick from the following list of
bacterial, protist or viral diseases:
VIRUSES
PROTIST PARASITES
BACTERIA
Parvo
Malaria
Tetanus
Hepatitis - A, B, C, D, Delta, E, or
G
Toxoplasmosis
Gonorrhea
Influenza (any variety - bird, etc)
Giardiasis
Tuberculosis
Dengue Fever
Leishmaniasis
Cholera
Ebola
Sleeping sickness
Botulism
Lyme Disease
Amoebic dysentery
Salmonella
Hantavirus
Chagas disease
Pneumonia
AIDS
Whooping Cough
African Swine Fever
Food poisoning
Blue Tongue
Gastroenteritis
Equine Infectious Anemia
Bubonic Plague (Black Death)
Swine Fever
Listeriosis
Rabies
Diphtheria
Rinderpest
Flesh-eating Bacteria
Smallpox
Poliomyelitis
Measles
Rubella (German Measles)
Mumps
Chickenpox

Part 1:
First you are going to need to know with which organelle, or virus, or protist, or bacteria, you will be
working. Once this is determined, you need to determine the true size of your organelle/bacteria
etc. in real life. You will need to use a scaled picture in order to do this. Here is the equation you
should follow:
Ruler length of your organelle
=
X (real size of organelle)
Ruler length of the scale bar
what the scale represents (in microns or nm)
or
what the scale represents (in microns or nm)
=
X (real size of organelle)
Ruler length of the scale bar
Ruler length of your organelle

You will solve for X in either of these equations. Now that you know how big it really is, you can
convert this to room size. The length of an average eukaryotic cell is about 30 microns (or 30 x 106meters) (This is an arbitrary number, because cells can be as small as a few microns and as large as
several centimeters). You will need to compare this to the length of the room (average size= 8.89
meters). Once these are known, you can set up a simple ratio equation to determine what the scale
size of your organelle should be in the room - something like:
X (Room length of organelle)
=
Length of the room
Real length of normal organelle or bacteria or virus)
Length of an average cell
or
X (Room length of organelle)
=
Real length of normal organelle or bacteria or virus
Length of the room Real
length of an average cell
Again you will solve for X. All you have to do is plug in the three numbers we know (size of the room,
size of the cell and size of your organelle normally) and then cross multiply to get the scale size of
the organelle. We will practice this in class. Now you know how big your organelle needs to be!

Part 2:
There are some specific things that you should find out about your organelle, or virus, or protist, or
bacteria. These consist of:
Organelle
Bacteria/Protist/Virus
1. Structure (what it looks like) - include a picture.
2. How big it is - both in real life and in the room
3. When and who discovered - include discoveries of
the function and/or structure
4. The function of the organelle (what does it do for
the cell) and how it relates to how it is made
5. Specific interactions with other organelles (you
need more than one and often more than two) these are things like does your organelle get
things that it needs from other organelles, does it
send things to other organelles, is your organelle
made by another organelle or does it make
another organelle.
1. Structure (what it looks like) of your pathogen
- include a picture
2. How big it is - both in real life and in the room
3. History of the disease - when first appeared,
when any major outbreaks occurred, who
isolated the organism that causes the disease,
who found a cure (if there is one)
4. How is the disease transmitted, what cells it
attacks, and how it hurts the cell (basically the
life cycle of the organism).
5. What are the symptoms, treatments, cures
and preventions for the disease.
Collection of websites that may be helpful. Some of the information you find may be very technical.
Do your best to sift through it for material that you can understand and ask me for help when
needed. This is going to require book research and internet research. You will be given some class
time, but you will also need to do work outside of the class, so don’t rely on being able to do it all
here at school. You must use at least 2 books and at least 3 internet sources. You may need to use
more, but you cannot use less. You will need to keep WRITTEN or typed, IN YOUR OWN WORDS,
NOTES (you will turn these in with your project) and cite your sources. The format for your
bibliography can be found on the research page.

Part 3 and 4 (you should work on these concurrently if you want):
o You will need to compile all of this information into a written summary. This needs to read
like a short essay. It should NOT be just a series of factual sentences; please do not make it
one paragraph. It should flow well and read easily.
o You will turn in a rough draft of the essay about a week before your final due date. This will
be worth a quiz grade. Do not wait till the last minute to get started on your writing!
o The major facts are as written above are:
Organelle
Bacteria/Protist/Virus
1. Structure (what it looks like) - include a picture.
2. How big it is - both in real life and in the room
3. When and who discovered - include discoveries of
the function and/or structure
4. The function of the organelle (what does it do for
the cell) and how it relates to how it is made
5. Specific interactions with other organelles (you
need more than one and often more than two) these are things like does your organelle get
things that it needs from other organelles, does it
send things to other organelles, is your organelle
made by another organelle or does it make
another organelle.
1. Structure (what it looks like) of your pathogen
- include a picture
2. How big it is - both in real life and in the room
3. History of the disease - when first appeared,
when any major outbreaks occurred, who
isolated the organism that causes the disease,
who found a cure (if there is one)
4. How is the disease transmitted, what cells it
attacks, and how it hurts the cell (basically the
life cycle of the organism).
5. What are the symptoms, treatments, cures
and preventions for the disease.

You will need to structurally build a scale model of your organelle or bacteria or virus to erect in the
classroom. It should be a recognizable representation of your organelle. Any material is acceptable;
however, please try not to be too wasteful of resources. Extra credit will be given for those who
successfully use almost all recycled products (products that have already been used at least once).
Also, please do your best to make your organelle somewhat collapsible or easily stored. Other class
periods will be doing this project. You will be given some class time to work on this, but again do not
rely on being able to complete it all at school.

Part 5:
You will need to make a presentation of your organelle and its functions to the rest of your class, as
well as to guests that will be visiting the room. As long as it includes the specified information, this
can be in a variety of formats – skits, posters, puppets, but since we will all be presenting at the
same time, we can’t really do PowerPoint, although if you want to show a video or animation, you
can have a laptop at your table. You will be the teacher for this. Make your “lesson” fun! How would
you like to learn about your project? Creativity in presentation can bring extra credit points!

Part 6:
WHAT NEEDS TO BE TURNED IN TO ME:
o THE SUMMARY INFORMATION OF YOUR ORGANELLE – THE WRITTEN PORTION OF YOUR
PROJECT
o YOUR WRITTEN NOTES
o YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY
o YOUR PRESENTATION (if you had anything written) AND
o YOUR MODEL ITSELF, WHICH WILL BE EVALUATED IN CLASS

Grading Rubrics (how I will grade this project!):
o Rough Draft Rubric – worth a quiz grade
o Final Draft, Model, and Presentation Rubric – total worth a test and a lab grade.
o This completes the cell project. I hope that you have fun with this!