A CELL IS LIKE A ...

One way of making a model is to make an analogy to something else that is easier to understand. In Reader's Theater, Ms. Portugal recognizes that the fundraising booth has similarities to a cell, and Aviv and Remigio look around and see that parts of their fundraising booth seems to have connections to things happening in the cell. A booth is fairly flat, however. Many cells are very three-dimensional.

An analogy that would work in three dimensions is an imaginary, interplanetary floating amusement park that you might imagine in a science fiction movie. We'll call it "Cytoworld." A story about it might begin like this:

• Inside its force field, it’s like nothing you ever imagined, where dreams are transformed into screams of delight. Lucky kids from all over the universe want to go, but you can only get in with a ticket which the guards carefully check before bringing you in. The guards are very careful about who enters Cytoworld because there have been attacks in the park that nearly started an intergalactic war. These guards also hold the line because attendance is always at capacity, and they don’t want the lines inside to get too long. But the lines at the entrances are also growing very long, and you can see that some of the rides inside the park are running with nearly empty coaster cars. As you wait outside the boundary of the park with your friend Qeeqee, the two of you decide you will petition Chairman Cyto, the head of Cyto Industries, to build another Cytoworld to accommodate its popularity.

For this project, choose some kind of a system from the real world or one from your imagination that you can describe in vivid detail. Describe how the parts of a cell compares to the system you choose. In the past, students have chosen places like these as cell analogies.

• City
• Country
• Construction Site
• Lab
• Kitchen
• House
• Restaurant
• Factory
• School
• Hospital
• Castle
• Mall
• Prison
• Human Body
• Sports Team
• … and more!

 

Once you've chosen your system, use this table to think through how different aspects of a cell compare to the system you selected. Then write a paragraph or two that reveals through fiction or non-fiction all the ways that your analogy for a cell can work.