GENERAL BIOLOGY 1 MODULE 1: Cell: The Basic Unit of Life

Schedule:
Name:
Wednesday and Thursday, 8:00-10:00 am
Grade Level and Section: Time Frame: Quarter 1: Weeks 1-2
Subject Teacher: Ms. Elmie L. Rodriguez (09506945450)

OBJECTIVE/S

By the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:

 Trace the development of the microscope
 Enumerate the tenets of the cell theory

INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY

Let us start the module by eliciting our prior knowledge through a Knowledge Rating Chart. Circle the
number that represents your learning experience on cells.

Knowledge Rating Chart

1 – I’ve never heard of this before
2 – I’ve heard of this, but I’m not sure how it works
3 – I know about this and how to use it

Activity1: Arrange the jumble letters to create a word which are connected to our topic.
1. COPESROCMI - __________________________
2. OHOKE - _______________________________
3. ELNSSE- _________________________________
4. LLCE - ____________________________________
5. UBTE-_____________________________________

DISCUSSION

Who Invented the First Microscope?

The history of the microscope spans centuries.

Roman philosophers mentioned “burning glasses" in their writings but the first primitive
microscope was not made until the late 1300’s. Two lenses were placed at opposite ends of a tube. This
simple magnifying tube gave birth to the modern microscope.

First Microscope
Grinding glass to use for spectacles and magnifying glasses was commonplace during the 13th
century. In the late 16th century several Dutch lens makers designed devices that magnified objects, but
in 1609 Galileo Galilei perfected the first device known as a microscope.

Dutch spectacle makers Zaccharias Janssen and Hans Lipperhey are noted as the first men to
develop the concept of the compound microscope. By placing different types and sizes of lenses in
opposite ends of tubes, they discovered that small objects were enlarged.

Lens Improvement
Later in the 16th century, Anton van Leeuwenhoek began polishing and grinding lenses when he
discovered that certain shaped lenses increased an image’s size. The glass lenses that he created could
enlarge an object many times. The quality of his lenses allowed him, for the first in history, to see the
many microscopic animals, bacteria and intricate detail of common objects. Leeuwenhoek is considered
the founder of the study of microscopy and played a vital role in the development of cell theory.

1 | Quarter 1-Module 1: Cell: Basic Unit of Life MOVERS ACADEMY, INC.

Achromatic Lens
The microscope was in use for over 100 years before the next major improvement was developed.
Using early microscopes was difficult. Light refracted when passing through the lenses and altered what
the image looked like. When the achromatic lens was developed for use in eyeglasses by Chester Moore
Hall in 1729, the quality of microscopes improved. Using these special lenses, many people would
continue to improve the visual acuity of the microscope.
Mechanical Improvements

During the 18th and 19th centuries, many changes occurred in both the housing design and the
quality of microscopes. Microscopes became more stable and smaller. Lens improvements solved many of
the optical problems that were common in earlier versions. The history of the microscope widens and
expands from this point with people from around the world working on similar upgrades and lens
technology at the same time.

August Kohler is credited with inventing a way to provide uniform microscope illumination that
allowed specimens to be photographed.

Ernst Leitz devised a way to allow for different magnifications using one microscope by putting
multiple lenses on a movable turret at the end of the lens tube.

Looking for a way to allow more light-spectrum colors to be visible, Ernst Abbe designed a
microscope that in a few years would provide Zeiss with the tools to develop the ultraviolet microscope.
Modern Technology Improving Microscopy
The invention of the microscope allowed scientists and scholars to study the microscopic
creatures in the world around them. When learning about the history of the microscope it is important to
understand that until these microscopic creatures were discovered, the causes of illness and disease were
theorized but still a mystery. The microscope allowed human beings to step out of the world controlled
by things unseen and into a world where the agents that caused disease were visible, named and, over
time, prevented. Charles Spencer demonstrated that light affected how images were seen. It took over
one hundred years to develop a microscope that worked without light.

The first electron microscope was developed in the 1930’s by Max Knoll and Ernst Ruska.

Electron microscopes can provide pictures of the smallest particles but they cannot be used to
study living things. Its magnification and resolution are unmatched by a light microscope. However, to
study live specimens you need a standard microscope. Scanning probe microscopy allows specimens to
be viewed at the atomic level which began first with the scanning tunneling microscope invented in 1981
by Gerd Bennig and Heinrich Rohrer. Later Bennig and his colleagues, in 1986, went on to invent
the atomic force microscope bringing about a true era of nano research. The history of the microscope
spans centuries, however Leeuwenhoek’s first design has remained unchanged since the 1600’s.

Initially discovered by Robert Hooke in 1665, the cell has a rich and interesting history that has
ultimately given way too many of today’s scientific advancements.

Although they are externally very different, internally, an elephant, a sunflower, and an amoeba
are all made of the same building blocks. From the single cells that make up the most basic organisms to
the trillions of cells that constitute the complex structure of the human body, each and every living being
on Earth is comprised of cells. This idea, part of the cell theory, is one of the central tenants of biology.
Cell theory also states that cells are the basic functional unit of living organisms and that all cells come
from other cells. Although this knowledge is foundational today, scientists did not always know about
cells.

The discovery of the cell would not have been possible if not for advancements to the microscope.
Interested in learning more about the microscopic world, scientist Robert Hooke improved the design of
the existing compound microscope in 1665. His microscope used three lenses and a stage light, which
illuminated and enlarged the specimens. These advancements allowed Hooke to see something wondrous
when he placed a piece of cork under the microscope. Hooke detailed his observations of this tiny and
previously unseen world in his book, Micrographia. To him, the cork looked as if it was made of tiny
pores, which he came to call “cells” because they reminded him of the cells in a monastery.

In observing the cork’s cells, Hooke noted in Micrographia that, “I could exceedingly plainly
perceive it to be all perforated and porous, much like a Honey-comb, but that the pores of it were not
2 | Quarter 1-Module 1: Cell: Basic Unit of Life MOVERS ACADEMY, INC.
regular… these pores, or cells,…were indeed the first microscopical pores I ever saw, and perhaps, that
were ever seen, for I had not met with any Writer or Person, that had made any mention of them before
this…”

Not long after Hooke’s discovery, Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek detected other
hidden, minuscule organisms—bacteria and protozoa. It was unsurprising that van Leeuwenhoek would
make such a discovery. He was a master microscope maker and perfected the design of the simple
microscope (which only had a single lens), enabling it to magnify an object by around two hundred to
three hundred times its original size. What van Leeuwenhoek saw with these microscopes was bacteria
and protozoa, but he called these tiny creatures “animalcules.”

Van Leeuwenhoek became fascinated. He went on to be the first to observe and describe
spermatozoa in 1677. He even looked at the plaque between his teeth under the microscope. In a letter to
the Royal Society, he wrote, "I then most always saw, with great wonder, that in the said matter there
were many very little living animalcules, very prettily a-moving.”

In the nineteenth century, biologists began taking a closer look at both animal and plant tissues,
perfecting cell theory. Scientists could readily tell those plants were completely made up of cells due to
their cell wall. However, this was not so obvious for animal cells, which lack a cell wall. Many scientists
believed that animals were made of “globules.”

German scientists Theodore Schwann and Mattias Schleiden studied cells of animals and plants
respectively. These scientists identified key differences between the two cell types and put forth the idea
that cells were the fundamental units of both plants and animals.

However, Schwann and Schleiden misunderstood how cells grow. Schleiden believed that cells
were “seeded” by the nucleus and grew from there. Similarly, Schwann claimed that animal cells
“crystalized” from the material between other cells. Eventually, other scientists began to uncover the
truth. Another piece of the cell theory puzzle was identified by Rudolf Virchow in 1855, who stated that
all cells are generated by existing cells.

At the turn of the century, attention began to shift toward cytogenetics, which aimed to link the
study of cells to the study of genetics. In the 1880s, Walter Sutton and Theodor Boveri were responsible
for identifying the chromosome as the hub for heredity—forever linking genetics and cytology. Later
discoveries further confirmed and solidified the role of the cell in heredity, such as James Watson and
Francis Crick’s studies on the structure of DNA.

The discovery of the cell continued to impact science one hundred years later, with the discovery
of stem cells, the undifferentiated cells that have yet to develop into more specialized cells. Scientists
began deriving embryonic stem cells from mice in the 1980s, and in 1998, James Thomson isolated
human embryonic stem cells and developed cell lines. His work was then published in an article in the
journal Science. It was later discovered that adult tissues, usually skin, could be reprogrammed into stem
cells and then form other cell types. These cells are known as induced pluripotent stem cells. Stem cells
are now used to treat many conditions such as Alzheimer’s and heart disease.

The discovery of the cell has had a far greater impact on science than Hooke could have ever
dreamed in 1665. In addition to giving us a fundamental understanding of the building blocks of all living
organisms, the discovery of the cell has led to advances in medical technology and treatment. Today,
scientists are working on personalized medicine, which would allow us to grow stem cells from our very
own cells and then use them to understand disease processes. All of this and more grew from a single
observation of the cell in a cork.

Robert Hooke refined the design of the compound microscope around 1665 and
published a book titled Micrographia which illustrated his findings using the
instrument.
POWER AND SYRED, LIBRERIA BARDON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/article/history-cell-discovering-cell/

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 Practice

Check Your Understanding: Answer the following thoroughly.

1. Name at least 3 persons behind the invention/development of the microscope and identify the
contributions of each.

Name of Inventor Contributions

2. How important is the development of microscope in the study of biology?

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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 For essay type questions your answers will be scored by the following criteria:

A. Direct to the point with exact answer 5 points.

B. same answer/explanation all throughout 4 points
C. Little or not related to the topic 3-1 points.

4 | Quarter 1-Module 1: Cell: Basic Unit of Life MOVERS ACADEMY, INC.

 ACTIVITY SHEET 1.1
SCORE
Name:___________________________________________________________________________________ Date:_________________

A. Activity 1: Write T if the statement is true and F if it is false. Write your answers on the space
provided.

___________ 1. .Human body is made up of trillions of cells.

___________ 2. The earliest microscope was invented in the 18 th century.
___________ 3. Theodore Schwann discovered that all plants are composed of cell.
___________ 4. The first electron microscope was developed in the 1930’s by Robert Hooke

___________ 5. Galileo Galilei perfected the first device known as a microscope.

___________ 6. Matthias Scheiden discovered that animals are made up of cells also.
___________ 7. It wouldn’t be possible to discover cell without microscope.
___________ 8. Not all living organisms are made up of cells.
___________9. Cell is the basic unit of life.
___________10. Robert Hooke is widely considered as the English Father of Microscopy. He also
coined the term “cell”.

Self-Assessment

Assess your own understanding of the discussions and activities in this module accomplishing the 3-2-1 exit sheet.
Write 3 things you learned about the topic, 2 things you found interesting and 1 question you still have in mind.

3 Things I learned today…….

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2 Things I found interesting…..

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1 Question I still have……

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Prepared by: Reviewed by: Noted:

Ms. Elmie L. Rodriguez Mrs. Angelie F. Panganiban May Rose C. Pico, Ed. D.
Subject Teacher Dep’t Head, JHS Department Principal, High School Department

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT SLIP

I hereby acknowledge that my child has accomplished all the exercises and activity sheet/s in this
module.

______________________________ _______________________________________________
Date Parent’s/Guardian’s Signature Over Printed Name

5 | Quarter 1-Module 1: Cell: Basic Unit of Life MOVERS ACADEMY, INC.