Name: Bilal Ahmad Period: 2nd Date: 1/7/21

Cell Cycle Lab Activities

Purpose: 1) determine which phase of the cell cycle cells spend the most time in
2) Identify the stages of the cell cycle using onion root tip cells
Activity 1:

In this online activity, you will look at 36 pictures of actual onion root cells in various stages of the cell cycle.
You and a partner will classify each cell based on its stage of mitosis. Based on the number of cells found in
each phase, you can approximate the amount of time cells spends in each stage.

Procedure

1. Go to http://www.biology.arizona.edu/cell_bio/activities/cell_cycle/cell_cycle.html

2. Click on “Next” and review the information and provided diagrams.

3. Click on “Next” through the next two sections.
4. Identify the stages of mitosis for each cell.
5. Count the number of cells in each stage of mitosis and complete the following chart.

Interphase Prophase Metaphase Anaphase Telophase Total

# of Cells 20 10 3 2 1 36
% of Cells 55.6 27.8 8.3 5.6 2.8 100%
Amount of
Time in 13.3 6.7 2.0 1.3 0.7 24 hours
Each Stage

6. To calculate the percentage of cells in each stage, divide the # of cells in each stage by 36 and multiply
by 100%. Your answer should be accurate to 1 decimal place.

# of cells 5
% of Cells  X 100%  X 100%  13.9%
Total # of cells 36

7. To calculate the amount of time spent in each stage…

a. Convert the % of cells into a decimal (13.9% = .139).
b. Multiply this percentage by 24. This will give you the amount of hours spent in each stage.
Answers should be accurate to 1 decimal place. ( .139 X 24 hours  3.3 hours )

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Name: Bilal Ahmad Period: 2nd Date: 1/7/21

Activity 2: Using the cards provided, record the number of cells (adding the number of each card together) in
each phase. Record the data in the table below.

Table 2: Card Data

Interphase Prophase Metaphase Anaphase Telophase Total

# of cells 252 58 11 4 15 340

% of 74.1 17.1 3.2 1.2 4.4 100%

cells

Questions for Activities 1 & 2

1. In which stage do cells spend the…

a. longest amount of time?

They spend the longest time in Interphase

b. least amount of time?

They spend the least amount of time in Anaphase.

2. Explain these differences.

Interphase is a long and complicated process that requires lots of time too be complete. Anaphase is just
the separation of sister chromatids making it relatively fast and easy to complete.

Review

1. Go to http://www.biology.arizona.edu/cell_bio/tutorials/cell_cycle/main.html
2. Go to “Test yourself”. Work your way through the quiz.
3. Go back and review any content that you do not understand.

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Name: Bilal Ahmad Period: 2nd Date: 1/7/21