Lesson Title: Specialized cells and single celled organisms
State Standards: GLEs/GSEs LS1-1b
Students demonstrate an understanding of differentiation by explaining that most multicellular
organisms have specialized cells to survive, while unicellular organisms perform all survival
functions. (e.g. nerve cells conduct electrical potential, Blood cells hold oxygen and muscle cells
contract).
Context of Lesson:
This lesson will cover functions of specialized cells, plant cells and unicellular organisms. While
none of these topics needs a great amount of depth or time, together they will form an interesting
lesson on the true variety found on the cellular level.
Opportunities to Learn:
Depth of Knowledge
The students will be interpreting what they see in a video with minimal instruction as possible to
explain it by acting it out in a group. When the students are being introduced to new knowledge,
they will be in level 1. They will then move onto level 2 when acting it out in groups.
Prerequisite Knowledge
The students will need to know…
• That cells are the building block for all living organisms.
• That cells are composed of organelles
• What organelles are found in an animal cell and what functions they perform.
Plans for Differentiating Instruction
This lesson utilizes the standard lecture form as well as visual and kinesthetic learners. This
allows students of multiple learning types and needs to succeed.
Accommodations and modifications
For students who have problems with writing I will provide a general outline of the class notes.
This will allow them to keep pace with the class while emphasizing the major points of the
outlines on their own. To modify this lesson for the student with a reading disability, I will
accommodate this student by providing a general outline of the class notes. This will allow the
student to keep pace with the class while emphasizing the major points of the outline. The
student will then be able to take additional notes individually without the frustration.
Environmental factors
There are windows outside and a large aquarium which could potentially distract students on one
side of the room
Materials
-Video links
-Outline of class notes for students to use as a foundation of notes.
-Picture file
-Projector
-Laptop
Objectives:
The students will demonstrate an understanding of specialized cells by demonstrating the
functions of the specialized cell in front of the class.
Instruction:
Opening:
The opening will introduce students to the cell accretion model. I will show a picture of
three related slides, an animal cell, a mitochondria, and a bacterial cell. The students will be
asked to predict correlations between the three pictures.
The students should be able to recognize two of the three objects. The bacterial cell is new so
the correlations will likely be wrong. Students will by proving or disproving their theory.
Engagement:
After a brief overview of the cell accretion model, I will transition into specialized cells.
Specialized cells will include plant cell structures and unicellular organisms.
Students will observe videos of specialized cell function and use them to create a presentation of
cell function. Questions asked during this section of class will be to guide the students into an
accurate demonstration of the specialty cell function and to ensure the students understanding of
what is happening. Questions would be things such as, if that arm is the axon and that one the
dendrites which way is the information flowing?
I will now transition into prokaryotes I will start by placing the same overhead of a
bacterial cell up from the beginning of class.
Question: I put this thing up at the beginning of class but who here knows what it is? It has a tail
and all those spikes and there is a cell wall and ribosomes. However, no nucleus so what is it?
Ask student with a show of hands to vote if the item is a plant cell, an animal cell, or an
organelle.
Does anybody want to guess what it is?
A student could possibly guess bacteria right away, if not I will give them hints until they figure
it out.
I will briefly describe the bacterial cell and its applications to everyday life (i.e. yogurt and yeast)
and introduce the vocabulary terms prokaryote and eukaryote.
Closure:
I will end the class by returning to the original three pictures of an animal cell, a
mitochondria, and bacterial cell. I will ask the students to share what they thought the connection
between the three pictures was. I will allow students to share their ideas. Then if we have not
gotten to the cell accretion model, I will guide the conversation there.