Cell Analogy Posters
You will work in a team to create a poster that displays the basic shape of
different cell organelles and has analogies for each organelle that help to
illustrate the function of the organelle.
Choose whether you want to diagram a plant or animal cell. One team
member’s job will be to diagram the basic parts of cell from the list below,
showing the shape of these organelles
Both types of cell:
Plasma Membrane
Nucleus
Mitochondrion
Rough ER (with attached ribosome)
Golgi Apparatus
Free Ribosome
Lysosome
If drawing a plant cell also include:
Cell Wall
Chloroplast
Central Vacuole
The other team members will research the function of each organelle and
create an analogy that will illustrate the role of that organelle. (An analogy is a
comparison between two objects which are similar in some respect.)
Choose a common theme for your analogies, such as the parts of a school, office, town,
factory or body systems.
Your analogy should include the reasoning for your choice in a way that also clearly
explains the role of that organelle. For example: the nucleus of a cell is like a brain
because it controls and coordinates the activities of the cell in the same way that a
brain controls and coordinates the activities of the body.
Your group will glue the cell diagram in the center of a piece of poster paper and then
create a poster for the analogies. Include a title indicating whether the cell is a plant
or animal cell. Draw a line connecting the organelle to the analogy describing it and
include a drawing or image from the internet or a magazine to illustrate the analogy.
Sample Analogy:
Animal Cell
as the United States
The plasma membrane is
like the customs B
border
around the US because it
controls what can enter and
exit the cell.
Note that the description of the analogy includes the actual function of the
organelle.
Rubric
____ Clearly a Plant or Animal Cell (labeled as such) and includes analogy theme (2
pts)
____ Drawing of the cell in the middle of the poster with appropriate organelles
included that shows approximate shape of the organelles. (5 pts)
____ All organelles are given an appropriate analogy with an included explanation of
the reasoning behind the analogy which includes the actual function of the cell
part. (15 pts)
_____ Images are included for cell part analogies (5 pts)
____ The project is neat and organized (3 pts)