News Summary

Middle school students at McGuffey Foundation School discovered in recent science classes that there are many ways to learn about cells. 

They peered through a microscope at thin slices of onions and Swiss chard. They drew diagrams of a cell nucleus, flagellum and other parts. They even crowded into a small bathroom and then slowly exited to act out the process of osmosis. 

But their favorite activity may have been baking sugar cookies and decorating them to illustrate the intricate parts that make up cells, the tiny building blocks of plant and animal life.

The students smeared vanilla frosting on their cookies to represent cytoplasm, the jelly-like substance that fills up most of a cell and gives it shape.

They used red licorice for the endoplasmic reticulum, an accordion-shaped substance that distributes messages from the cell's nucleus. And they used chocolate chips for the ribosomes, cluster-like substances that receive the messages and respond by building the various proteins that make the cell function. 

"Cells are very complex," said Kaili Fuehrer, a seventh-grader, as she stole glances at a diagram in her textbook while adding M&Ms to her cookie. "They're like a pinball machine. There's lots of stuff going on."

McGuffey science teacher Heidi Schran said she likes to include hands-on components in most of her lessons because she feels it helps the students retain information better. With other students at the school, she has built dioramas of plant life around the school grounds, made terrariums, sampled water quality in local creeks and raised and released Monarch butterflies. 

"They're much more engaged," Schran said of why she is a big proponent of hands-on science. "There are a lot of scientific terms that students don't understand right away and when they see it actually happen through an experiment or an activity, that really helps them to get it."