A cell built for one job does not look like a cell built for another. Often you can work out the job just by looking.
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Students will reason from a cell's shape to its likely job, and place cells, tissues, organs and organ systems in order from smallest to largest.
Cells differ in size, shape and function, and the shape is usually a clue to the function. This is a reasoning skill, not a list to learn.
The ladder: a group of similar cells working together is a tissue. Different tissues working together form an organ. Organs working together form an organ system. Each rung is a group of the rung below.
🚨 Turning this into a list of cell types to memorise. The objective is that you can look at an unfamiliar cell and make a sensible guess about its job. If he can do that with a cell he has never seen, the lesson worked.
The second stumble is tissue and organ. A tissue is one kind of cell doing one job; an organ is several different tissues working together. The heart is an organ because it is muscle and nerve and blood vessel all at once.
Play it as a guessing game. Describe a cell shape and have him guess the job before you say it. Long and thin, flat and flexible, box-shaped and stiff. Getting it wrong is fine; the reasoning is the point.
The ladder is worth saying out loud in both directions. Cell, tissue, organ, organ system, organism. Then back down again.
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Before You Start
The words this lesson uses. Tap a card to see what it means, then come back to them whenever a question uses one.
Part One
Questions about the story you just read. Pick your answer straight off, or press Find it in the story if you would rather hunt for the sentence first.
Part Two
The word cards are at the top of this page. Look back at them as often as you need, then answer.