C e l l s

The Universe Inside You

MarylandScienceCenter

Exhibition Outline DRAFT 7/26/06

  1. You & the Cell Universe:

1. Introduction: You are a community of billions of cells.This is the story of you and the universe inside you.

1a. Peer into a series of peep holes to see astounding magnified views of the cell world you will explore

1b.See your own image captured and zoom into your beating heart and other organs to see the living cells that you’re made of.

  1. Cells and the Miracle of Life: you emerge from a single cell

2a.All life begins with a single living cell.

1. Choose different 3-D cell images to view on a3 ft. spherical projection screen:

  • sperm cell penetrates a human egg cell;
  • single frog egg cell dividing to become a ball of cells
  • single cell develops into a fully formed human fetus

2. View living single-cell organisms on a video microscope . Pick out different

cell processes such as eating, excreting, moving, reproducing.

3.Match models of 4 cell types(plant, animal, protozoa, bacteria) to descriptions of what they do.Then watch each cell come to life through time lapse video on a nearby screen.

4. Put images of developing embryos of different animals in correct sequence ; See the images morph into a frog, chicken, mouse or human. What’s similar in each?

  1. Compare real plastinated specimens of animal development to a series of early human development models and/or photos.

2b. How does a single cell develop and grow into you?

  1. Use a spin-browser to explore amazing images of early human development from single cell through birth.

2. Open up a 3-D model of a five-day old human embryo. Discover which parts become heart, brain and other important organs.

3.. Explore a time lapse movie of human fetal development from the inside .Follow the development of early cell layers- endoderm, mesoderm and ectoderm- intoreal human organs such as bone, heart and brain.

2c. You and your cells are always changing.

  • 1. Match organs in a human body with their age-labeled cells. Find out which cells are the oldest and youngest in your body andwhat happens to your cells throughout your life.
  • 2. Looking in a video-microscope, pick out the differences between older and younger skin cells. Find out why old cells die.

3. Click on images of people at different ages to find out how cells growing and dying affect people at every life stage. How does cell death affect shape of the fingers of a fetus? What happens to your bone cells from baby hood to old age? How does exercise in older people affect growth of brain cells?

2d. Different cells do different things and work together to make you alive.

1. Use different parts of your own body to activate real human cells.:

1.Use your own heart beat to control the beats of a heart cell

2.Contract your arm muscles, to contract real muscle cells.

3.Listen to your own voice, to activate hair cells in the ear.

4.Touch different objects to fire nerve cells in your hand.

  • see different types of cells, shape relates to function
  1. Touch and view large 3D cell models w/ A/V projections and sounds of active cells. Cells might include heart, nerve, muscle and white blood cells.

3. Match different cell images to real plastinated organs. )

4. Look through video-microscope at different ways of imaging of human cells (including light, scanning electron, 3-D stereo images)

5. Uncoil a section of DNA in heart, muscle and nerve cells.See that each different cell uses a different piece of DNA to make proteins that it needs to do its work.

3. The World Inside a Cell

3a. Every cell is a tiny world.

Take a 3-D powers of ten journey into a giant cell. Begin by projecting a magnified view of your hand on the wall. Then walk through a series of archways and go from your own viewing your own skin to huge, magnified views of a single skin cell, cell organelles, human chromosomes, down to DNA and other cell molecules.

` 3b.Cells are alive and active

  1. Peek into the cell through a translucent membrane. See and hear liquid sounds of movement and colored flashes of constant activity.
  2. Fit through an opening in the cell membrane.The cell membrane acts like our skin, protecting the cell from outside invaders. Try fitting yourself and a variety of molecules into receptors that open passages into the cell.
  3. Create energy by cranking sugar into a mitochondria. Mitochondria use sugar from digested food we eat to create ATP molecules that bring energy to every part of the cell.
  4. Digest cell waste products by feeding a lysosome. Lysosomes use acid to break down cell waste, similar to howbacteria in our large intestine break down left-over waste from food we eat.
  5. Enter the nucleus and uncoil a piece of the DNA molecule that directs every aspect of cell life; DNA contains the codefor making proteins that carry out every cell activity. Visitors can begin the process of making proteins by fitting the proper base pairs into a giant DNA ladder.
  6. Sit at DNA station to play the virtual game of life.Visitors direct the process of making important proteins for our bodies by fitting 3-d molecules together and setting in motion a life-like animation of the process of translating the DNA code into a protein molecule.
  7. Walkthrough a giant maze of rough endoplasmic reticulum. Follow the complex process of making proteins by fitting RNA from the nucleus into the Rough ER.
  8. Fly through an animated and beautiful virtual world of the cell on a giant screen. By moving your body in different directions explore an enormous variety of cell processes that cells in your body are carrying out every second of your life.

4. Research and You: Science Affects You & You affect science

4a. You, Science & Big QuestionsWalk through a dreamlike tunnel and add your shadow to a montage of scientists, children and dancers of different ages asking big questions about where medical research may take us in the next 20 years, i.e.,” What if doctors could cure all cancers? Do I want to live past one hundred? Would I like to pick the traits of my babies?”(dreamlike space for YOU, your questions and the scientists working on the mysteries of the unknown) We find ourselves immersed in our questions and our kid’s questions are flowing through the space.

  • Scientists work on the “edge” of the unknown between concrete research & the big questions.
  • You see scientists are working on one big question here (stem cells)
  1. End with image of micromanipulator puncturing cell membrane.

5b New Directions: The Promise of Stem Cells and other “Big Questions”

Intro into stem cell research: process, issues and current projects (embryonic vs. adult)

Virtual Lab & Connected Research

  • Capture a cell w/ amicromanipulator: (extract embryonic, find adult cell)
  • Add growth factors to grow cells (embryonic & adult)
Create specialized cell to reach “end game”
  • Different scientists talk about; Big questions, why they do stem cell research and why it affects you. Hear scientist talk about their daily research. See scientists as real people.
  • Regular updates for: NIH, JHU & UMBC, Univ. 1. TBA & Univ. 2. TBA

(This what they think can happen from their research)

  • See research process of Embryonic vs Adult stem cell research
  • ZOOM IN Powers of Ten w/ scientists and their tools lead us into a Giant cell environment. Different scientific tools are used to see different details of a cell.

(scanning electron microscope, light microscope etc.)

5d. Global Potential: Research updates and the unlimited potential of stem cell research.

5e. Clinical Research Process of other cell based research

Bone Marrow Transplants: follow the whole Clinical Research Process

  • steps in laboratory testing
  • steps in clinical trials
  • access stem cell clinical trials going on now

5c. Research case study: aging (one of the big questions).Changing Content. What you do can affect your health as you age? positive stories visitors do things : ride a bicycle: how exercise affects your cells, nutrition game: how what you eat affects your cells, biofeedback game and how stress affect your aging cells, see your skin under UV light and learn how sun exposure affects your aging skin cells.. smoker’s lung and how smoking affects your cells

5d. Research case study: Changing ContentIllness (one of the big questions)

5c. Science affects you: Your Health & Behavior

  • potential cures from stem cells and other advancements
  • what you can do to help yourself
  1. Your Part in Science: Many Faces, Viewpoints & Choices

6a. Find Your Story by getting the facts (Read)

  • Different sources for information media? Who decides?
  • How do you tell your story?

6b. You Decide: Different Viewpoints Create Different Choices (Listen)

  • Balance choices (gains & losses) talk with others…
  • Case studiesof real people provoke conversation.
  • Hear different sides of the question pro/con. Its more complicated than you think

Read a story told threedifferent ways.

  • Choose a future path for science exploration…science fiction or fact?

6c. You Talk w/ scientists: (Talk)

Scientists & Ethicists share their discoveries and openly debate their ideas.

(others contribute: ministers, teachers etc.)

  • Choose debates from different areas of research
  • Ask questions (Live program)

6d. Wet Lab: You are the scientist

  • Choose a path for your own exploration
  • Obtain cells
  • Make them grow
  • Pursue a Question

prepared by Cooks/ Rogan 7/26/06