Cell Tour

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!