Unit/Topic: 1.1 Introduction to cells
Essential Questions:
What is the effect of size on a living cell?
Does the surface area increase at the same rate as the volume in larger cells?
Statement 1.1.U4: Surface area to volume ratio is important in the limitation of cell size.
Objectives:
1.Determine the surface area to volume ratio and relate this to cell size, in order to determine why cells,
divide
2. Understand the problem cell growth causes and how cell division solves the cell growth
problem
Watch the video , PowerPoint and your text book as resources to understand the concept and then
complete the task given below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNkP4rycLbI
Complete the table below to calculate the surface area to volume ratio of different sized cubes
where L is the length of each side of a cube.
Length
of each
side (L)
cm
Area of each face
(L2) cm2
Surface area of
the whole cube
(L2) x 6cm2
Volume of the
cube (L3)cm3
Surface area to volume ratio
Surface area cm2
volume cm3
1
2
3
4
Analysis
1. If the agar cubes were cells, what types of substances might move into them?
2. How does this activity model diffusion of substances into cells?
3. Which “cell” do you think would have the best chance for survival? Why?