Specialised Cells

Lab Brief #5

🎯 Your mission

Run the experiment. Find out what really happens.

⚡ The twist

What the body does in one minute is wilder than any cartoon.

What you'll learn

Cells change shape to do a job. A red blood cell loses its nucleus to carry more haemoglobin, a root hair cell grows a long projection to increase absorbing surface, and a nerve cell stretches to carry signals over distance.

Key words

specialised cell
A cell whose shape and contents are adapted to one particular job.
differentiation
The process by which an unspecialised cell becomes a specialised one.

Make a hypothesis first

Guess: how does the body solve this problem?

Say your guess out loud — then find out if you were right.

Get ready

🧰 What you need

cell diagram cards
notebook
coloured pencils

⚠️ Safety first

Mop up spills straight away so nobody slips, and keep liquids away from sockets.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Think about what you just learned: say what "specialised cell" and "differentiation" mean in your own words before you start.

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Given six labelled cell diagrams, match each to its job and write the one structural feature that makes it suited. Then sketch a cell you would design to absorb as much water as possible.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Record what actually happened, including anything that did not match what you expected.

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Write a conclusion that answers the question this lesson opened with, and state your uncertainty.

Question 1 of 2

A root hair cell's long projection increases its:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 2

Red blood cells carry more oxygen because they lack a:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Mind = blown

🦠 You have more bacterial cells in your body than human cells.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 2 right.

All lessons

🎯

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✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: Your own body is doing this thousands of times every second.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Find one thing about your body that's different from a friend's. Wonder why.

👨‍👩‍👧 For the dinner table: “Tell me something you noticed about your own body today.”

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Specialised Cells

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