Ani mal vs. Pl ant Cel l
1
Name _____________________ Class_________________
Background: The two major types of cells are plant and animal
cells. Plant and animal cells have many organelles in common such as the
cell membrane, nucleus, chromosomes, ribosome, mitochondria, and sometimes
lysosomes. Plants have organelles that animals do not have such as chloroplasts and a
cell wall. You would need a pretty powerful microscope to view these organelles.
In this exercise, you will be asked to observe a plant and an animal cell under
the microscope. Your microscope is not powerful enough to see most of the
organelles in these cells. Your group will try to come up with characteristics of each
cell that would enable someone to decipher the difference between these two types
of cells using a relatively low magnification microscope, the compound microscope.
Problem: How can someone tell the difference between an animal cell
and a plant cell with a compound microscope?
Materials:____________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Procedure:
Mounting a Specimen
1- Gently scrap the inside of your cheek with a wooden splint. You
have plenty of dead epithelial (cheek) cells that will come off.
2- Paste your cells on the center of the first glass slide.
3- Place a drop of iodine onto the cells.
4- Cover the cells with a cover slide and tap out the air bubbles.
