Jello Cells

Okay, I must admit this is a bit hypocritical of me after my last post. On Friday we made cell models out of jello and lots of candy. Healthy? No. But this was all in the name of science.

The 5th graders have been studying animal and plant cells for a few days now. We have looked at diagrams in our book and on the Internet. The students have drawn their own diagrams all nicely labeled with the cell parts. Today we made models out of jello. I am hoping this will really help them remember the parts of a cell.

Here's how it works. For the animal cell a plastic bag represents the cell membrane and the red jello is the cytoplasm. The plant cell has a plastic cup to represent the cell wall (it's rigid) and green jello for the cytoplasm. The organelles are a large jawbreaker for the nucleus, Mike and Ikes for the mitochondrion, and marshmallows for the vacuoles (many small for the animal cell and one large for the plant cell). Oh yeah, and we can't forget the green licorice pieces representing the chloroplasts in the plant cell.

It tasted as disgusting as it sounds, but the kids didn't seem to care.

Up next... we will look at the real deal under high powered microscopes. An elodea leaf will show off some pretty nice plant cells and we will get animal cells from the inside of our cheeks.

Just a note for any parents reading this. The cell quiz is on Wednesday, October 13. A study guide will go home on Monday.