Objectives
- Students will identify the changes that occur in cells during each phase of mitosis.
- Students will correlate these changes to the duration of time cells spend in each phase.
- While looking at a section of an onion root tip, students will count the number of cells observed in each phase of the cell cycle. They will then estimate the amount of time that a cell spends in each of the phases of the cell cycle.
- Students will watch a simulation of the process of mitosis and answer accompanying questions.
Vocabulary
- anaphase
- cell cycle
- chromosomes
- interphase
- metaphase
- mitosis
- prophase
- nucleus
- telophase
About the Lesson
In this lesson, students investigate the cell cycle, which includes interphase and mitosis.
As a result, students will:
- Identify the major changes that occur in a cell during each phase of mitosis by watching a simulation.
- Correlate the time a cell spends in each phase with the number of cells in a rapidly dividing region of an onion root tip undergoing each phase.
- Understand the implications of the differences between cells that have long or short cell cycles.