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Mitosis and Microscopy

This unit helps advance students’ understanding of mitosis with real data, and drives students to evaluate types of data, data interpretation, and experimental design.

About this lesson:

This open lesson reinforces existing knowledge of mitosis, helps students transition from looking at drawn images or plant cells (such as in the classic onion cell mitosis experiment) to high resolution microscopy data, and introduces open research questions in the field of cell biology. Students also have the opportunity to explore what happens to cell structures that are not directly related to chromosome reproduction during the process of mitosis and cytokinesis.

 

The open science data used in the virtual experiment portion of this unit come from the Allen Cell Explorer, a data set featuring tens of thousands of research-grade cell images. Students will learn about one kind of data collected in research settings and begin learning how it can be used

 

Lesson plan

 

Image showing an integrated human stem cellThe lesson also directs students to the Visual Guide to Human Cells, an interactive resource developed specifically for students that explores and explains the functions of cell structures.

The full lesson plan includes learning objectives, Next Generation Science Standards and Advanced Placement alignments, a teacher guide, suggested timing, and lesson materials.

Five things we still don't know about cells

Picture one of your cells. You may be thinking about the fried-egg-reminiscent illustration from a textbook
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The Visual Guide to Human Cells lets users rotate, zoom in and out, and highlight different structures inside a 3D model of a human stem cell.

Visual Guide to Human Cells

Look inside a human cell as it grows and divides with this open science visualization tool
Explore tool
Image from the Allen Cell Collection of human iPS cells expressing Tubulin

Allen Cell Explorer

Access an unprecedented view into the organizational diversity of human stem cells
Explore open data and tools
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