Jake Kazan

Mrs. Steininger

Honors Biology

3/18/19

Magic School Bus

It was another day in the fourth period bio class room and the same things were going on as

every other day. Jake and Shawn were out of their seats, Pfister asks to go to the bathroom… again, and

RJ and Logan talking to each other across the classroom. When Mrs. Steininger finally settled everyone

down, she told the class, “Today we are going to be learning first hand what makes an animal cell.”

Peyton asks, “How are we going to do that?” Mrs. Steininger replies, “We are going to take the magic

school bus into one of Richard’s cells (the pet lizard). The class erupts with joy and they run outside into

the school bus. They shrink down small enough to squeeze inside a cell and fly into Richard’s blood

stream. Mrs. Steininger driving, finds the cell she wants to use and slowly flies up to it and as

approaching it the students see things bouncing off the outer layer of the cell and one of the students

ask, “What is that keeping stuff from entering the cell?” Mrs. Steininger responds, “That is called the cell

membrane, it controls what enters and leaves the cell. The cell gets its shape from the Cytoskeleton,

which keeps the cell from collapsing because it is made up of protein fibers, and Cytoplasm which holds

water and nutrients and is the “filling” of the cell.” The bus then pushes through into the cell and they

see a big bean shaped that seems to have a folded membrane inside of the membrane surrounding it.

Peyton shouts, “That’s the mitochondria, the power house of the cell. They turn sugars into energy and

release them.” Mrs. Steininger says, “That is correct. Do you know…” out of nowhere Logan screams,

“Ticket!!! Peyton got it right.” Mrs. Steininger roles her eyes then asks, “Do you guys know what that is

over there?” as she points to a munch of tubes overlapping each other. The class is dead silent with
confusion, then Dom sees no one knows the answer then raises his hand. He answers, “that is the rough

Endoplasmic Reticulum that has the little dots, ribosomes and they produce protein, all over it and they

package proteins and send them to the Golgi Apparatus.” “Good Dom. Now what is the other one

without the ribosomes on it?”, asks Mrs. Steininger. Jackson response with, “That is the Smooth ER and

they make lipids break down toxic material. And what exactly are they surrounding?” Mrs. Steininger

says, “We will get to that later. But before we do, who can tell me what the Golgi Apparatus is.” Brenden

explains, “The Golgi Apparatus looks like the membranes are stacked over each other. It is the “post

office” of the cell which means they take what the Endoplasmic Reticulum gives it and modifies, sorts,

then packages them. They send them to other parts of the cell in vesicles.” Teddy asks, “What is a

vesicle?” “Good question. They are the sacs that separate from anything that has a membrane and

transport what ever it has to other things in the cell.”, says Mrs. Steininger. The bus then begins to make

its way around the Rough ER and almost run into this big sphere shape and Nate shouts, “That’s a

lysosome. They are the waste baskets of the cell, they are the made of vesicles that are filled with

digestive enzymes.” “Very good.”, says Mrs. Steininger, “And what is that over there” as she points to a

big blob shape in its own space. Pfister shouts, “That is the vacuole, it stores food water and waste.”

They finally make their way around it and see this big circle shaped figure and Mrs. Steininger says,

“That is the nucleus and it holds the DNA of the cell and the filling inside of it is called the nucleolus.”

The whole class is in amazement and then the bus sprints out of the cell, out of Richard, and outside of

the school just in time for the next class.