Role-Playing Activity to Demonstrate Diffusion Across a Cell Membrane
-
Author:
Elizabeth Harrison1
-
Received 14 January 2018 Accepted 27 June 2018 Published 31 August 2018
- ©2018 Author(s). Published by the American Society for Microbiology.
-
[open-access] This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode), which grants the public the nonexclusive right to copy, distribute, or display the published work.
- *Corresponding author. Mailing address: Georgia Gwinnett College, School of Science and Technology, 1000 University Center Lane, Lawrenceville, GA 30043. Phone: 404-450-8111. Fax: 678-407-5938. E-mail: [email protected].
Abstract:
Transport of molecules across the cell plasma membrane can be a difficult concept for introductory biology students to understand and visualize. Role-playing activities provide a simple, cost-effective method for enhancing student understanding of various challenging biological concepts. This cell membrane role-playing activity was designed to teach introductory biology students how small nonpolar and polar molecules cross the cell membrane as well as the importance of diffusion, osmosis, and tonicity.
References & Citations
Supplemental Material
No supplementary material available for this content.

Article metrics loading...
Abstract:
Transport of molecules across the cell plasma membrane can be a difficult concept for introductory biology students to understand and visualize. Role-playing activities provide a simple, cost-effective method for enhancing student understanding of various challenging biological concepts. This cell membrane role-playing activity was designed to teach introductory biology students how small nonpolar and polar molecules cross the cell membrane as well as the importance of diffusion, osmosis, and tonicity.

Full text loading...
Author and Article Information
-
Received 14 January 2018 Accepted 27 June 2018 Published 31 August 2018
- ©2018 Author(s). Published by the American Society for Microbiology.
-
[open-access] This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode), which grants the public the nonexclusive right to copy, distribute, or display the published work.
- *Corresponding author. Mailing address: Georgia Gwinnett College, School of Science and Technology, 1000 University Center Lane, Lawrenceville, GA 30043. Phone: 404-450-8111. Fax: 678-407-5938. E-mail: [email protected].
Figures

Click to view
FIGURE 1
Diagram showing how the students are arranged in the classroom during Part 2 of the activity. The grey circles represent two students acting as channel proteins, the white circles represent students acting as water molecules. In this scenario, there are more water molecules outside the cell than inside the cell (the cell is in a hypotonic solution) so water molecules will move into the cell though the channel proteins until the number of water molecules is equal on both sides of the cell membrane (represented by the dotted line).