#the ties that bind biology and theology are older than any religion

[inspired-lesson-plans]

Biology, grade 7+, organelles and cell structure

Do Now:

Read the poem and answer the following questions, alone or with a partner.

What, if any, factual error(s) can you find in the poem?

If the mitochondria is the cellular equivalent of the biblical Eve, then which organelle would be the biblical Adam? Why?

Answers below the cut

Centrioles produce the microtubules that are like the puppet strings or highway system of the cell. They are unrelated to cell walls. Additionally, in case any students wish to nitpick, mitochondria is the plural of mitochondrion, and while they are typically used interchangeably, the last stanza treats the word like a singular entity instead of a plural.

Nucleus is the generally correct answer. However, a better answer would be the nucleoid, which is the prokaryotic equivalent to the nucleus. Since Eve was created from Adam's rib (or penis bone, as argued by some scholars), it's logical that the Adam organelle would also be prokaryotic, and therefore predate the first nucleus.

a silly ode to the first mitochondria, with waaaay too many religious allusions

(the mormons put me in seminary for four years and now it's everyone's problem)

the garden was not made of trees the snake did not exist when Eve was formed inside the seas and then was set adrift

she drifted in the tidal pools prokaryote divine producing simple molecules acids and alkalines

but paradise can never last and every god must fall some swallowed by a cytoplast (entrapped by a cell wall)

what do you call the dead that rise? what name is there for this? an Eve that finds that eden lies inside of the abyss

the wall no longer trapped her in but locked the monsters out the freedom only she could win to swim, and grow, and sprout.

she tinkered with her molecules And in a twist of fate Created one of life's crown jewels Adenosine Triphosphate (1)

what was before a simple wall could bloom with organelles a garden grown from former falls a paradise in hell

a fortress swam inside the brine, a thriving little town where tiny citizens could shine and ride the ups and downs

a golgi apparatus strove to package safe proteins a lysome found a nice alcove and kept the whole cell clean

the centrioles rebuilt the walls whenever they grew weak and eve was known and loved by all as something quite unique:

the powerhouse of the first cell the mitochondria (2) the Jonah that became the whale the jesus of bacteria once eaten by a macrophage then made through death anew the founder of our current age the sprout from which we grew

(yeah, yeah - you try and use this line in a poem)

(gah. this paragraph killed the syllable counts. i was challented to fit the phrase "powerhouse of the cell" into it, and mitochondria had to fit somewhere. both of which were gonna be doozies. decided to put them back to back and break the scheme at the end.