Lab 2: Animal and Plant Cells

Lab 2: Animal and Plant Cells

Purpose: To examine the differences between single cell and multi cell organisms in terms of Animal and Plant cells.

Question: What are the differences between multi and single celled plant and animal organisms?

Prediction:

Spirogyra Cell: The parts of the spirogyra cell that will be visible under the microscope will be; cell wall, cell membrane, nucleus, chloroplasts, vacuole and cytoplasm.

Banana Cell: The parts of the banana cell that will be visible under the microscope will be; cell wall, cell membrane, nucleus, vacuole and cytoplasm.

Tomato Cell: The parts of the tomato cell that will be visible will be; cell wall, cell membrane, nucleus, vacuole and cytoplasm.

Paramecium Cell: The parts of the paramecium cell that will be visible will be; cell wall, cilia, nucleus and mitochondrion.

Smooth Muscle Cell: The parts of the smooth muscle cell that will be visible will be; cell membrane, nucleus and mitochondrion.

Design: The first action taken in this lab was the recording of predictions of what will be visible in the cell under the microscope. The next action taken was viewing a spirogyra cell under a microscope at 40x magnification to focus it. Then the ocular lens was rotated to the 100x magnification and a picture was recorded of what was visible under such magnification, after the slide had been focused. After recording the picture, the ocular lens was rotated to 400x magnification and another picture was recorded of what was visible under the microscope, once again after the slide had been focused. After the 100x magnification and also the 400x magnification, and estimation was recorded of how many cells fit across the field of view. The same process was followed for the banana cell, tomato cell, paramecium cell and smooth muscle cell, with the tomato slide being stained with methylene blue solution, and the banana stained with Lugol’s solution, both to highlight certain cell parts. The independent variables was the microscope. The dependent

variables were the microscope slides of the spirogyra, tomato, banana, paramecium and smooth muscle slides.

Materials: Refer to page 21-22 of Nelson Biology 11. Changes: Spirogyra, Paramecium used instead of Elodea and Cheek Epithelium slides.

Procedure: Refer to page 21-22 of Nelson Biology 11. Changes: Slides described above were used.

Observations: Refer to attached Observations.

Analysis:

a) The arrangement of plant and animal cells differ in several different ways. Plant cells have a visible cell wall with a cell membrane on the inside of that cell wall. In the examples reviewed in the lab, the general layout of plant cells seems to be much more dense than the animal cells, in the sense that there are many more in a smaller area.

b)

Cell Name Magnification # of Cells in Field of View

Spirogyra 100x 12 down, 13 across

Spirogyra 400x 7 down, 8 across

Tomato 100x 7 down, 5 across

Tomato 400x 1.15 down, 1.25 across

Banana 100x 38 down, 38 across

Banana 400x 4 down, 3 across

Paramecium 100x 15 down, 14 across

Paramecium 400x 6 down, 4 across

Smooth Muscle 100x 11 down, 20 across

Smooth Muscle 400x 1 down, 12 across

It appears that in general that the tomato cell is largest of all the cells studied, proving that the plant cells seem to be larger.

c) The spirogyra has smaller cells than the tomato cells, which makes the cell parts more difficult to see. In the spirogyra at 400x magnification, only the cell nucleus and a cell wall are visible, but there are also approximately 9 cells that fit across the field of view, whereas the tomato cell at 400x magnification, only one cell can fit in the field of view. Also since the tomato cell is stained with methylene