Good morning ladies and gentlemen. A
pleasure to have you all here today as we gather on a journey through the cell
of a human. We just ask you all to be mindful of the exhibit and try not to
touch anything that is roped off. Other than that, we plan to have a fun day
learning about the functions of a cell! If you’ll fall me right this way, we
will enter into the cell through the cell membrane.
Now that we’ve all made it in side,
as you can see, the cell membrane is the wall is lining that surrounds the
entire perimeter of the cell. We will start the tour throughout the cell within
one of the most fascinating parts of the cell. If you’ll all climb through this
entrance, I will explain a little more inside.
We are now within the endoplasmic
reticulum structure of this cell. This part of the cell is a network of tubes
and passages used for the transportation of substances. I will now give you all
time to explore the endoplasmic reticulum. Be sure to explore every passage and
watch out for fluids headed your way. We’ll meet back at the entrance in twenty
minutes.
Thank you everyone for meeting back
up. As we’re leaving the endoplasmic reticulum, you will notice the tiny balls
lining the perimeter. Those tiny balls are known as ribosomes. The areas with a
lot of tiny balls is known as the rough endoplasmic reticulum. That are with
barely any tiny balls is known as the smooth endoplasmic reticulum.
Now
that we’ve explored the endoplasmic reticulum, we will move on into the Golgi
apparatus. As you can see, the fluids within the endoplasmic reticulum are
directly transported here and converted to different substances. The Golgi
apparatus is made up of flat structures stacked on top of each other.
As you can see, as we walk away
from the Golgi apparatus exhibit, there are some pieces that have fallen away
from the exhibit. The pieces are call Lysosomes. Lysosomes are the flat
structures of the Golgi apparatus that have broken off. These lysosomes help to
digest nutrients as well as break down debris such as bacteria’s.
We will now enter into the largest
structure within the cell. This shiny lining surrounding the next structure is
the nuclear membrane in place to hold and protect the nucleus of the cell. This
structure is called the Nucleus. You will notice that a lot is stored within
the nucleus being that it is a pertinent structure within the human cell.
Within the nucleus, DNA is stored. The nucleus is also in charge of the
reproduction of the cell. We now are entering the dark structure within the
cell called the nucleolus. Watch your step, something is growing directly
beneath your very feet. This is where the “tiny balls” or ribosomes are made. Do
you see that tiny exit where all of the ribosomes keep leaving the nucleus? Those
are called nuclear pores. If you’ll carefully follow me out of the nucleus
exhibit, we are now going to make our way to the Mitochondria exhibit.
Here we are, in the mitochondria.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, this cell has several mitochondria we can explore. As
you all can see, this is where all of our fuel gets broken down into energy.
This is also where we find ATP because the molecule ATP is how we store the
energy we just broke down.
As we leave the mitochondria, I
would strongly recommend putting on your nose plugs in your tour kit. We will
now be making our way past the vesicles. Vesicles tend to hold waste and digestive
fluid within the cell and that is where that awful smell is coming from.
Oh my! Would you look at that? Not
every day do we run into a centriole while we’re on our tour. A centriole is an
organelle that forms when the cell is about to divide. I would strongly advise
you all to hold on tightly to each other and your belongings. Exit your new
cell via the cell membrane exit. I will meet you all there after the separation.
Here it comes, HOLD ON!
