e cell is the microscopic building block of most living organisms.

Biology students learn about t

he parts of a cell and how they function, but it can be difficult to imagine how a cell really wo
rks. A useful way to gain a deeper understanding of what goes on inside a cell is to compare i
t with familiar objects and places in everyday life. Teachers often assign cell analogy projects for
this reason. A cell analogy project requires a real-life place or object in place of a cell that de
scribes how the place's or object's components are like those of a cell.

Cells are Like Schools

The hard exterior of a school building keeps it standing like a cell wall does in a plant cell. If y
ou are late to school, you might find the doors locked. Doors are like the selective openings in
cell membranes, which only open at certain times and only for certain chemical signals. In a cell
, vacuoles operate as small spaces to store things, much like lockers work in a school. The main
office functions like the nucleus in a cell, directing the action. The crowded hallways everyone
walks through are comparable to the endoplasmic reticulum, which the cell uses to get informati
on from the nucleus to other organelles.

The teachers follow curriculum guidelines to provide students with knowledge and critical thinkin
g skills. Compare teachers to ribosomes in this cell analogy, which are tiny organelles made of
proteins that translate information from the nucleus. Students are like mitochondria, converting l
earning materials into knowledge instead of converting glucose into a source of energy called a
denosine triphosphate, or ATP. The Golgi apparatus packages and stores material before it leave
s a cell, just like a classroom contains students until school is out.

Cells are Like Cities

In the past, many cities had walls surrounding them to provide structure to the city limits, and s
o that only people with permission could enter. In that way, they worked both like a cell wall p
roviding a rigid boundary to a plant cell, and like a plasma membrane that only allows material
s in with the correct chemical signal. City hall serves as a city’s headquarters, where laws are m
ade and where historical records are often kept. The nucleus serves as a cell’s headquarters, wh
ere it stores genetic information in the form of DNA.
Many cities have industrial districts, where most of the factories cluster together. In a cell, the e
quivalent of an industrial district is the rough endoplasmic reticulum, home to the many riboso
mes that assemble proteins. A city’s power plant serves as its energy manufacturer, converting a
fuel like coal or gas into electricity. Mitochondria does the same thing in a cell, but it converts
glucose into ATP. A post office stores all the city’s outgoing mail until delivery, like the Golgi a
pparatus in a cell. Visitors to the city might leave their cars in parking lots while they visit differ
ent sites. The parking lots provide storage for those cars like vacuoles do for materials in cells.

Cells are Like Cars

A car’s metal body maintains its shape even when it travels at high speeds. The structure its bo
dy provides makes it comparable to a cell wall. You can compare the windshield and windows t
o plasma membranes, since they protect the inside of the car from invaders like insects and dirt
. Cars need power to drive, and this happens when fuel, converts to energy in the engine, muc
h like mitochondria creating ATP. In a cell, the endoplasmic reticulum helps with the transport o
f material through the cell; In a car, the fuel line provides fuel to the engine from the gas tank.

A car's driver is equivalent to the nucleus of a cell. If the driver does not step on the gas, the
car does not move. The gas pedal conveys the driver’s desire to move to the engine, similar to
what a ribosome does with information from the nucleus. As the engine burns fuel, it creates ex
haust, which passes through the catalytic converter to make the fumes less harmful to the air b
efore exiting the vehicle. Like the catalytic converter, the Golgi apparatus does its own version o
f packaging up materials in transport. Both the car trunk and the glove compartment function a
s storage spaces as do vacuoles in cells.

Cells are Like Zoos

If you have ever gone to a zoo, you have seen many animal enclosures connected by walking
paths. Somewhere in the zoo is the administration office where its staff make decisions about e
xhibits, animals and other zoo activities. This represents the nucleus of the zoo. Before you coul
d get into the zoo, you buy a ticket before you pass through its gates. Zoos typically have wall
enclosures around them to keep freeloaders out and to protect the animals, which operates lik
e a cell wall. The gate is like an opening in a cell membrane that allows only ticket holders thr
ough. After entering the zoo, you might participate in a tour led by a zookeeper. Like ribosome
s that translate information from the nucleus into fuel, the zookeepers take scientific knowledge
about animals and share it with visitors.

The walking pathways connect the different parts of the zoo like endoplasmic reticulum does ins
ide a cell. Enclosures serve as a kind of protective storage for the animals like vacuoles do for
nutrients and other materials in a cell. The animals themselves provide the attraction for visitors,
fueling zoo operations like mitochondria does in cells. Near the exit, the zoo might have a gift
shop, where visitors can purchase stuffed versions of the animals they saw before leaving. If you
had visited a microscopic cell instead of a zoo, the Golgi apparatus would have served the fun
ction of storing and packaging items before they left the cell