ACTIVITY 1

The Discovery and Binding Mechanisms of Life

Objective: Understand the cell theory

Procedure: Answer the activity below.

Rudolf Virchow Anton Van Leeuwenhoek Matthias Schleiden

Theodor Schwann Robert Hooke

A. From the discussion that was presented by your teacher, identify the scientist who was
credited for each of the following discoveries. Choose the answer from choices above.
1. The thousands of tiny empty chambers in a cork are called cells — Robert Hooke
2. Tiny living organisms can be observed — Anton Van Leeuwenhoek
3. All plants are made up of cells — Matthias Schleiden
4. All animals are made of cells — Theodor Schwann
5. All cells come from pre-existing cells — Rudolph Virchow

B. Complete the three basic components of the cell theory by arranging these words in proper
order. Give a short explanation (4 sentences) for every proposition.

1. ORGANISMS OF CELLS ARE ALL MORE LIVING COMPOSED OR ONE

— All living organisms are composed of one or more cells.
This means that all living organisms should have at least one cell in order to have life,
because cell is the basic unit of life. Without cell, all living organisms would not have the
chance to exist. Also, cells contains the organism's hereditary information or what we know
as Deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA that can make one organism to copy itself in a process that
we call as mitosis. And every living organisms should have DNA because it contains the
specific and unique information of every single living things.

2. OF BASIC CELL THE IS UNIT LIFE

— Cell is the basic unit of life.
As I said, cell contains every organisms' hereditary information that enables every living
things to make a copy of itself or to produce another organism that way that they are. Cells
are the basic building block of life because basically, it is where we all came from. All of the
cells that created the organism have an important role to play for the organism in order to
perform its life functions. Cells also considered as the basic unit of life because they come in
discrete and easily recognizable packages or they have their own identity.
3. COME CELLS PRE-EXISTING ALL FROM CELLS
— All cells come from pre-existing cells.
This is because cell must create another organism of itself in order to produce and maintain a
greater number of its kind. Cells are the fundamental units of life, therefore they too have a
reproductive mechanism that maintains the proper chromosome number in each cell. Cells
carry genetic material passed to daughter cells during cellular division and as cells grow old,
they wear off they sometimes suffer injury and bruises that needs to be repaired by creating
another cell. That’s why they are producing another cell in order to repair themselves through
the means of mitosis.

C. Answer the following questions in 4 sentences. You answer will be graded according to the
following rubrics:
5pts- if you answered extensively in 4 sentences
4pts- if you answered satisfactorily in 4 sentences
3pts- if you answered extensively beyond or less than 4 sentences
2pts- if you answered satisfactorily beyond or less than 4 sentences
1pt- if you answered in one correct sentence only

1. Why was spontaneous generation previously considered as a plausible explanation on

how life can originate from an organic matter? How was it disproved?
— Spontaneous generation was one of the theories in which how was life originated.
Spontaneous generation is the hypothetical process by which living organisms develop
from nonliving matter. In addition to this, a lot of people believed in the theory of
spontaneous generation because it explained such occurrences as the appearance of
maggots on decaying meat where they put some pieces of cheese and bread wrapped
in rags and were left in a dark corner, and were sought to believe to produce mice, for
several weeks after mice were found the rags. But it was disproved because larger
organisms like us humans and such animals were not been able to be produced the
same way that those mice were.

2. How did the invention of the microscope contribute to the discovery of cells?
— Microscopes contributed a lot on the study and discovery as well as the history and
evolution of human anatomy. It allows the scientists and researchers to classify,
observe and see microorganisms that our naked eye wasn’t able to see without such
instrument. It is possible to see living and unstained bacteria as well as the other tiny
microorganisms. Without this instrument, they wouldn’t be able to come up with the
idea on how life began.
 3. If these scientists did not pursue their work and share their contributions to the world,
do you think people would still arrive at the idea that all organisms are made up of cells?
Why?
— No, because those scientists contributed a lot on how does life begun. The
discovery of the cell has had a far greater impact on science as well as in the field of
medicine. The discovery of the cell also led us to advance in medical technology and
create cure to other illnesses and virus that was resulted by giving us the fundamental
understanding on the basic unit of life that we call “cells”. With the studies of those
scientists, they have opened the curiosity of other scientists that resulted to conduct
lots of researches and now was used and being thought throughout the universities
around the world.

McHargue, Zaira Gem M.

12-STEM C