Download Activity: Examining Plant Cells

Name ___________________________________________________
Cells. Examining Plant Cells.Elodea.2014
Date _________
Activity: Examining Plant Cells
Goals: To observe, identify and describe the major structures
found in a typical green plant cell.
Background Information: Three structures make plant cells
different from animal cells. These structures are the cell wall, a very large vacuole
and chloroplasts. You will notice these structures immediately when you look at plant
cells under the microscope. (The most visible structures of an animal cell are the
nucleus, cytoplasm, and cell membrane.)
Cell walls help a plant maintain its shape and give the plant support. If the wind blows,
the plant doesn’t droop over, it’s able to bounce back and stand up straight. The cell
walls also provide elasticity. No matter what happens to the plant cell, the cell
maintains its shape. Sometimes the cell inside the wall will shrink, or swell, but the cell
wall keeps all of the parts of the cell in a specific area.
In plant cells, the vacuoles are much larger than in animal cells. Sometimes a plant
vacuole can take up more than half of the cell’s volume. The vacuole acts like a storage
container and holds large amounts of water, food, or wastes. The large vacuoles and
cell wall work together to maintain the box-like shape of the plant cell.
There are many chloroplasts in a plant cell. Chloroplasts take energy from the sun and
create food in the form of a simple sugar called glucose. (This text was summarized
from the Biology4Kids website.)
Materials: blank slide, cover slip, scissors, eyedropper, water, Elodea leaf tip, tweezers,
paper towels
Procedure:
1. What I Know: Write two sentences about what you already know about plant
cells.
2. Create a wet mount using the Elodea leaf tip. Carefully cut the “growing end’
from the tip of an Elodea leaf. (This piece should be about 5 mm in size.)
3. Place the Elodea leaf tip onto a drop of water that has been placed on a blank
slide. Cover the specimen with a cover slip.
4. Beginning at 40X observe the plant cells. Move the slide around until you find an
area of plant cells where it is easy to see individual cells.
5. Continue your observations at 100X and 400X.
6. What I Observed:
 Illustrate your best view of the plant cells at either magnification (100X or
400X).
 Label the cell wall and a chloroplast. Try to find and label the cytoplasm, a
vacuole, and cell membrane. These last three structures might be more
difficult to find.
 Write a caption for your drawing that describes your observation in detail.
a. Illustration and Labels:
b. Caption
______ X
7. Questions: Answer the following questions in complete sentences. Use your
textbook as a resource.
a. Compare and contrast the functions of a cell wall in a plant cell and
functions of a cell membrane in an animal cell.
b. How is a vacuole of a plant cell different from that of an animal cell?
c. Why is a chloroplast important to the function of a plant?
8. What I Wonder: Pose a “why” or “how” question about what you would still
would like to know about plant cells or wonder about plant cells.
9. What I Learned:
Claim: What did you learn?
1.
Evidence: How do you know that?
Use your observations. Be specific.
1.
2.
2.
1.
2.
Claim and Evidence Writing Prompts: Use the following prompts to help you construct
your lab conclusion, What I Learned.

Goal: State the goal of this lesson.
The goal of this lesson is…

Claim: What did you learn from the activity that satisfies the goal of this lesson?
This is an I Learned statement.
I learned that…

Evidence: How can you prove from your observations (data) you collected that
you learned what you claim? This can be a general statement that you will
explain in detail in your explanation.
I know this because….

Explanation/Reasoning: Use specific data from your observations to support
your claim and describe the evidence. Use details to support your claim. Add
information from that you learned from our class discussions, text book or other
resources that will help support your claim or enhance your explanation.
Name ____________________________________
Lab Activity: Examining Plant Cells (Elodea)
Date __________________
What I Learned: Write a summary of what you learned by completing this activity.
The summary should include a claim that is related to the goal of the lesson,
provides evidence from your observations, and offers an explanation/reasoning that
links your claim to the evidence.