Uncovering the building blocks of life

Mahak Katyal

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” – Albert Einstein

This saying by Albert Einstein holds true for teaching-learning any concept. A child can cram anything but it is important that he/she understands it. Today, we will talk about one such concept that students often tend to mug up.

Cell is one the main topics that is taught in grade 8 and above. It forms the base for learning the more complicated concepts such as the different types of tissues and their functions, DNA, and biotechnology. Hence, it becomes very important that cell is taught with utmost clarity.

Having said that, cell is one such concept that involves dealing with a lot of scientific jargon. When taught just by reading out from the textbook without any dialogue between the teacher and students, students often get bored, lose interest, and hence do not understand the concept well.

What is the role of the teacher in such a case then? The teacher should become the facilitator of knowledge and try and make the class as interesting as possible. This article intends to give you a set of activities that you can use in the classroom to teach the concept.

Before talking about how to deal with this concept in a fun and interactive manner, let us learn about the NCERT content requirements for this concept.

Digging into the NCERT textbook

Fig: An animal cell

Grade 8 is the first time that cell structure is introduced in detail in the science textbook. Before that in primary classes, a student learns the basic definition of a cell, i.e., cells are the building blocks of life. In grade 8, a student is expected to understand what a cell is and know the names of scientists who discovered it. The chapter then talks about how some organisms are made up of one cell while others are made up of multiple cells. It further elaborates upon the parts of a cell and the difference between a plant and an animal cell.

Learning the interactive way

Let’s now talk about the different set of activities that can make the topic easy to comprehend.

1) Show and tell: One of the most commonly used techniques to teach cells is to show the students a cell under a microscope. You can conduct this activity in the biology lab using the microscope and cell slides. Let the students independently observe the cell and then discuss what a cell looks like. You can draw the diagram of a cell while discussing this with the students to give them a better picture.

But what if your class strength is large and you cannot give each child a chance to observe and see the cell samples? In those cases you can:

2) Use a 3-D cell model: This is useful for students who are learning cell structure for the first time. A 3D representation of a cell gives them a clear picture of what a cell looks like. One way to do this is to get the children to assemble a cell model themselves. You can divide your class into groups and give materials required for the model. You can hang a diagram of a cell in front of the class for reference. When they are done, let them display their models. Talk about how each of the organelle is different from the other. You can vary the activity by getting some groups to make animal cell models and the others to make plant cell models. Once done, you can compare and contrast the cells with each other.

3) A cell pizza: This activity can be used in a beginner classroom in which the cell is being introduced for the first time. For this, bring a pizza base with different types of toppings. Represent each part of the cell with one kind of topping. This is a yummy way to help students remember the names and the location of the different cell organelles in the cell.

4) Using easy metaphors: We talked about how the most difficult part of this chapter/unit is the difficult words that the students are introduced to. One easy way is to teach using metaphors. For example, you could refer to the cell as a factory with a number of different subunits each defined to do a particular task. Explaining in this manner makes it easy to understand the functions of a cell and cell organelle. You could use any other metaphor that you feel fit for a cell and then talk about cell organelles.

Once you are done explaining the cell and cell organelles, you can use the below mentioned activities to test a student’s understanding about the cell.

a) Cell story: Ask your students to write a biography of a cell talking about the different cell organelles that it contains instead of asking questions and answers.

b) Post it cell: Another fun way to test whether the students know the cell well is to hang an empty outline of a cell in front of the class. Ask the students to complete the cell model by pasting either the names of the different organelles inside the cell or by drawing out and cutting the shapes of the different organelles and pasting them on the cell. This is a quick activity that does not require much preparation. You can convert this activity into a quiz as well and see if the students can identify the description of the organelle that you are talking about.

c) Bingo game: This is another fun way of assessing a child’s knowledge about not only this concept but other concepts as well. For this, prepare bingo cards with the names of each organelle written and distribute them to the whole class. Now, read aloud the descriptions from the clue sheet and see who shouts bingo first.

These are activities that I have used in various classrooms to make this chapter fun. You can do much more by keeping in mind that we want them to understand not rote learn. You will be amazed to see the vast improvement in the learning of the students.

The author is a Science Communicator for Brainwave Magazine with experience in designing science curriculum and lesson plans for various schools. She has written science stories for kids. She maintains a blog at https://pouringminds.wordpress.com/. She can be reached at mahakkatyal18@gmail.com.