Discussion Topic

Cell Organelles and their Functions

This unit we are learning about cells and the organelles contained within. In this Discussion, we’ll focus on the functions of the various organelles and cell structures:

Cell membrane | Mitochondria | Plant cell wall | Plant chloroplast | Nucleus | Lysosomes | Nuclear envelope | Rough endoplasmic reticulum | Golgi apparatus | Smooth endoplasmic reticulum |Cytoskeleton | Cilia and flagella

1. Select four of the organelles or structures above and briefly describe where each is located in the cell, their appearance and the role each carries out.
2. Look around your home or place of work and find an item or process that is analogous to each of the four organelles you described. Be sure to explain how that item or process is analogous to the cell structure or organelle; be specific. Here is an example of an analogy:

A record player is like the rough endoplasmic reticulum in that it takes information encoded in the grooves of the record and translates them into a song from start to finish. The grooves in the record are like xxxxx and the song produced is like xxxxxx.

You will need to justify your analogy and provide the information indicated by xxxxxx. You may not use this example and do not use a tape recorder or CD either.