Edible Cell Model Made of Pasta

Students have fun learning about cell organelles with a buffet-style cell biology lesson! After studying the functions of different cell parts, students create an edible model of a cell using different kinds of pasta and toppings. You can use the activity when teaching Next Generation Science Standard (NGSS) MS-LS-1-2. Develop and use a model to describe the function of a cell as a whole and ways parts of cells contribute to the function.

This activity is best done after students have learned the basics about cell parts and their functions. In my classes, students first completed a cell model on paper and did some written work describing what each cell organelle does. They also studied how different cell parts work together. Before eating their model, students needed to be prepared to tell me some of this information using the model. It was my experience that making pasta cell models was something they looked forward to and served as a nice reward.

If you are leading this activity with a class, requesting parent donations of items needed for making the cell models, if possible, can save you some time and money. I emailed parents a Google doc where they could sign up to donate ingredients. 

Below is a list of items I have used for classes of about 25-28 students. This list seemed to serve the requirements of many different students I had, but you may want to adjust this according to the dietary needs and preferences of your particular group.

2 packages spaghetti

1 package spaghetti- gluten free

2 packages regular lasagna noodles

1 package lasagna noodles- gluten free 

1 package mini wheels pasta

4 jars red pasta sauce- no meat or dairy and gluten free

3 cans black olives

Dried oregano and/or basil

1 package frozen peas

1 can cannellini beans

1 can kidney beans

7 small, thin zucchini (slice into circles and fry)

2 packages cherry/grape tomatoes

4 boxes toothpicks

Be prepared with small bowls and/or plates for students to use when creating their models as well as forks for eating it. We always had leftover items, so having empty food containers on hand is useful.

If you plan to do this activity, it is best to have some extra hands to help you. I always had an assistant and/or a parent volunteer or two help with food preparation before the lesson and clean-up afterward. They helped prepare for the activity by boiling the pasta, cutting and frying the zucchini, warming the frozen peas, and putting ingredients into bowls with spoons to serve. 

If you are unable to arrange an extended class period to make the cell models, it’s a good idea to have students make little toothpick flags as labels for the cell parts the day before. 

Once students have made their flags and all the food is prepared and set out, students can get into the buffet line and use the ingredients as they like to create their cell model. Giving suggestions can help get them started. Students should decide whether they will create an animal or a plant cell, and this will determine whether they will need to create a border of one layer- just a cell membrane- or two- a cell membrane and a cell wall. These parts could be made using lasagna noodles or spaghetti. The green peas work well as chloroplasts for those students making plant cells. Zucchini slices are a nice size for the cell nucleus. Because ribosomes are very tiny, sprinkling dried herbs on the top works well as a model for ribosomes. Spaghetti with red sauce works well as a model of cytosol.

After creating and labeling the cell model, students show it to the teacher or assistant, naming and explaining the jobs of a few cell parts, and giving an example of how two cell parts work together. Then they can eat it!

If you would like to see other blogposts related to cell biology, follow these links:

Personality Quiz with Plant Cell Parts

Cell City: Cell Organelles Project

Illustrating Science Vocabulary: Plant Cell Organelles

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Illustrating Science Vocabulary: Plant Cell Organelles

Understanding science vocabulary can be very challenging for students. When they create simple drawings for new terms, students get familiar with the vocabulary in an enjoyable, low-stress way. I found that this activity works especially well when teaching about chloroplasts, chromoplasts, and leucoplasts, all organelles found in plant cells. Students are engaged when illustrating the words and have the chance to express their individual style. The result is an informative and colorful display of your students’ work in the classroom.

Before starting the activity, you can show students photos of the three types of plastids- chloroplasts, chromoplasts, and leucoplasts, discussing their function and where they are likely to be found in plants. 

Juan Carlos Fonseca Mata, CC BY-SA 4.0

<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Chloroplasts are where photosynthesis happens, and they are found in the leaves and other parts of the plant that are green. Chromoplasts give flowers and fruits their color. Students are interested to know that leucoplasts help provide some of their favorite foods as storage places for starch, fat, and protein. They are commonly found in potatoes and seeds, including beans and corn kernels. Thank leucoplasts for french fries, chips, and burritos!

Brainstorm with students how they might illustrate the words chloroplast, chromoplast, and leucoplast, writing ideas on the board for reference. 

Chloroplasts - green leaves, sunshine, water, and CO2

Chromoplasts - flowers, fruits

Leucoplasts - potatoes, french fries, beans, corn, burritos

Groups of three students get three strips of paper made by cutting 8 ½” by 11” printer paper into three parts lengthwise. 

Each student illustrates one of the three plastids so that all three plastids are completed by the group. I enjoy seeing the different styles students use in their work.

As students finish their work, they can help arrange the illustrations as a display on the wall. I found that putting each type of plastid illustration in a single column helps students more easily use them as a reference.

If you would like to learn about playing simple vocabulary-building games that draw on students' creativity, follow this link:

Low-Prep Games for Teaching Vocabulary

Here are links to other blogposts related to cell biology:

Personality Quiz with Plant Cell Parts

Cell City: Cell Organelles Project

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Personality Quiz with Plant Cell Parts

                                                                                                                            Updated March 5, 2024

You can use a fun personality quiz to get your students better acquainted with the parts of a plant cell. What plant cell part best matches each of their personalities? Do your students like finding out information and passing it on like mRNA does? Maybe they are full of energy, like the mitochondria, or leaders, like the cell nucleus. When I created this activity for my sixth- and seventh-graders last year, I was pleasantly surprised by how much they enjoyed it!

As I was preparing my lessons for a return to school after a long Spring Break, I wanted to come up with an activity that would ease students back into their studies and provide a review of cell parts. We had already completed the Cell City project on animal cells, and I wanted to reinforce what they had learned about plant cells. A friend shared with me the idea of relating cell parts to different types of people. My daughter had been taking various personality quizzes and suggested I create one for my students related to cell organelles. This turned out to be a great idea!

The plant cell personality quiz I created has a very simple format: a Google slideshow with personality types on each slide, all referring to the last slide, which reveals which plant cell part the student would be. The last slide also includes a description of what the cell part does. Here is an example of one of the personality type slides:

After discovering which cell parts they would be, students report their results on a Google Form. They explain why their personality matches the cell part. Students also need to report the result of one peer and give their opinion of whether the cell part is a good match for their peer’s personality. Grading this assignment was fairly easy because in Google Forms, you can view the quiz results in a spreadsheet, allowing you to view all the students' results at the same time.

Before giving students the personality quiz, I told them that I had some guesses about what their personality quiz results would turn out to be. As they completed the quiz and I asked them about their results, I found that I had guessed correctly on many though some were a surprise! As students shared their results with me and one another, this activity turned out to be a way to not only review plant cell organelles but also to connect with one another.

I have posted this Plant Cell Personality Quiz for free on TPT. Here's the link:

Plant Cell Personality Quiz on TPT

If you are interested in a project related to cell parts, follow this link:

Cell City: Cell Organelles Project

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Cell City: Cell Organelles Project

 

Updated December 28, 2022

In the Cell City project, students learn about cell parts by making connections between a bustling city and the activity within a cell. It was inspired by a fun Crash Course video titled "Eukaryopolis - The City of Animal Cells", a video I shared with my students before beginning the project. The Cell City project addresses Next Generation Science Standard MS-LS1-2: Develop and use a model to describe the function of a cell as a whole and ways parts of cells contribute to the function.

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) encourage students to think about systems at different scales. I introduced the Cell City project by asking students to describe what a system is and to give examples. Students explained that a system was something with steps or parts that work together. We came up with examples that included human body systems, computer systems, and transportation systems. I asked whether a city was a system, and students decided it was because of the many different parts that interact. They also thought that cells were microscopic systems because of the different parts of a cell that all work together.

The first step of the project was to learn about what each cell part does. Students accessed a free, online text published by CK-12 for this. Next, students considered the job of each cell part and tried to find an analogous part in a city that serves a similar function. For example, the cell nucleus and city hall have a similar job because they both control what happens within the system. I gave students examples of city parts they could use, but students were also invited to use their own ideas.  

I created the city parts clipart using Google Draw. It was fairly time consuming but produced the results I wanted. Students cut out the images of city parts and glued them onto labels with the analogous cell parts. 

To make it easier for students to color the cell parts and labels the same color, I pasted the cell part clipart  (also created using Google Draw) into a table with the label for each part.

Students glued the cell parts onto their poster and pasted the cell part names onto the tops of the labels. 

To pull it all together, students wrote a paragraph comparing the functions of cell parts to various parts of a city and explained how these parts interact to form a single system. Some students completed an extension activity in which they wrote questions that could be answered by their posters. These questions were given out to their peers as a review activity once the posters were displayed on the wall.

To view the CrashCourse video that inspired this project, follow this link:

Eukaryopolis - The City of Animal Cells

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Happy Birthday, Dad!

Thanks to Kavita and Parthiv for helping me edit this post!