Dominic Prentice

Mrs. Steininger
March 20, 2018
Honors Biology
Magic School Bus Narrative

Once the bell rang to my surprise Mrs. Steininger stands up and says, “Class were going

on a field trip today!” Very confused nobody in the class said anything and thought it was just a

joke. Then Mrs. Steininger walks out the door and urges us all to follow so we go and there is a

bus waiting outside. We all get on the bus and were seated but Tyler was still waiting outside.

Tyler said, “Can someone help me get on the bus,” as he is ringing his bell. Mrs. Steininger then

says, “Sorry Tyler the bus is not scooter accessible,” and we left. We were driving down the road

when DJ raises his hand and asks, “Mrs. Steininger where are we going?” She said, “We are

going to be looking at a plant cell today.” Then DJ asks, “Well how are we going to do that?”

Next thing you know the bus instantly shrinks down to what we think is smaller than a cell. We

see something green and rectangular ahead and it looks significantly larger than our bus. Jack

Cullo raises his hand and asks, “Mrs. Steininger what is that?” Mrs. Steininger then says,” This is

the plant cell that we will be looking at today.”

Mrs. Steininger explains,” Class what we are approaching right now is the cell wall, this

is gives the cell protection and is located all around the outside of the cell.” We enter inside the

cell and the first thing we see are these asteroid looking things they are smaller than everything

else we see but larger than us. Mrs. Steininger asks, “Does anyone know what these are that are

floating around? No one has an answer?” After a minute of silence Matt raises his hand and says,

“It’s the powerhouse of the cell!” Mrs. Steininger says, “No theses are ribosomes and they are

small particles of RNA and protein and do not have membranes.” Then Mrs. Steininger asks,

“Do any of you guys know what this web looking part of the cell is? Come on guys I will give a
bonus point to who ever can answer it.” Then everyone in the class raises their hands. Carson got

called on and said, “Is it the skeleton?” Mrs. Steininger says, “Your close ill give you the point

but it is the cytoskeleton and it is a web of proteins that keeps the cell membrane from

collapsing.” Mrs. Steininger then explains what we are in right now, “What we are travelling

through right now is called the cytoplasm. This is all throughout the cell and it is everywhere its

located throughout all of the cell.” Next, we pass something very large compared to the things

we saw before and it looks like a large sac. Rocco raises his hand and asks, “What is that big sac

looking thing?” Mrs. Steininger says, “That is the large central vacuole of the cell, it stores

materials like water, salts, proteins, and carbohydrates.” We continue through the cell when we

come upon something that looks like a bunch of little spheres put together on the outside. Mrs.

Steininger asks, “Does anyone know what part of the cell this is?” Ashton raises his hand and

says, “It’s the cell membrane.” Everyone in the class yells, “That’s a ticket!” She then gives

Ashton a ticket which she brought with us on the bus. She then goes on to explain what the cell

membrane does, “The cell membrane allows movement of substances into and out of the plant

cell.” Then Tim asks, “What is that thing over there that kind of looks like the cell membrane?”

Mrs. Steininger says, “That is a vesicle. It looks similar because it is a smaller membrane

enclosed structure, and it stores and moves materials between organelles.” Next, we started

moving toward an organelle that looked exactly like a vesicle and I asked what it was. Mrs.

Steininger begins to say, “That is a lysosome, this organelle digests food particles, wastes, cell

parts, and foreign invaders. They are vesicles but filled with digestive enzymes.” Next, we

approach an oval shaped organelle and Matt yells, “It’s the powerhouse of the cell!” Mrs.

Steininger says, “Yes Matt this is the mitochondria, do you know what it does?” Matt says, It’s

the powerhouse!” Then she replies, “Yes, but it breaks down sugar into energy. The
mitochondria also have two membranes and its own set of DNA.” Next, we approach what

looked like a membrane, but it had two folds in it and I remembered that this was the Golgi

apparatus. Mrs. Steininger then explains, “This is the Golgi apparatus it looks like that because it

is made up of a double folded membrane and vesicles. In this organelle lipids and proteins are

modified, sorted, and packaged. Then a part of the Golgi membrane breaks off to form a small

vesicle and the vesicle transports it to other parts of the cell.” Then we move on too these two

very similar looking organelles both looked like a series of folded membranes, but one looked

very rough with ribosomes all over it. Mrs. Steininger tells us that, “Those organelles are the

Rough Endoplasmic Reticulum (Rough ER) and the Smooth Endoplasmic Reticulum (Smooth

ER). Now does anyone know what they do?” No one raised their hand for a minute until DJ

finally did. DJ said, “The Rough ER is an organelle that produces proteins and helps them fold

properly and the Smooth ER processes fats and steroid hormones.” For our last stop we went to

see the nucleus and nucleolus. It looked like a big sphere and was very large. We went inside and

I noticed a double helix which I knew was DNA. Mrs. Steininger begins to explain, “The DNA

holds the information to make proteins and other important molecules. The nucleus is surrounded

by the nuclear envelope with thousands of nuclear pores which is how we got in to the nucleus.

The small very dense region over here is called a nucleolus, this is where ribosomes are formed

and sent throughout the cell. We then began to leave the cell and passed all the different

organelles on our way out. It was such an amazing experience to see all the different organelles

up close. We regrew and were very close to the school. We rolled up and Mrs. Steininger said,

“Everyone off the bus.” Once we arrived we saw Tyler still waiting on his scooter since school

was now over. That was our adventure through a plant cell.