Lifeboat Dilemma

So again, after another project, I've just received another one (they just keep comming right after each other! Dx). Luckily, there was a story to it (yay, a story!):

A captain and his crew were in a small boat, for their ship had just sunken down in the depths of the sea (no, it didn't meet Spongebob... -.-"). The captain just found out that the small boat wouldn't be able to endure his and his crew's weight for some time and will soon, sink. Therefore, the captain decided to throw someone out of the ship.

We applied this story to a cell's situation: the crew became the cell organelles and the captain, well a captain itself (not the DNA or the nucleus, though).

So each of my classmates (including me) received a cell part (I received the cell wall) and what we had to do, was to create a speech about why are we (actually, the cell parts) important and shouldn't be thrown away into the "sea" (my class and I were also divided in groups to represent two plant cells and one animal cell). Since each group would represent the captain and his/her crew from the story, we had to present our speech within them.

This is my speech about the importance of the cell wall:



Just pay attention to the CELL WALL

 I believe that the cell wall is important for the eukaryotic plant cell because it protects the cell, helps it keep up with its shape, and to communicate with other cells. A plant is a living thing and as a living thing it needs water. So then, to prevent the cell from an excessive intake of water, the cell wall is needed. Moreover, if there are huge amounts of water in the plant cell, it will burst (if it doesn’t have a cell wall). A cell wall contains little holes called plasmodesmata. Although these holes do let some water in, they still help the cell, for it provides water to the cytoplasm, a cell organelle that consists of water and therefore, needs water (but not a lot).

Summarizing, the cell wall is like the boat itself in the story. 




Plasmodesmata



In addition to that, not only does the cell wall protect the cell from water, but also from pathogens. Furthermore, in a leaf’s case, in order to increase the photosynthetic capacity, the cell wall helps the plant cell keep up with its shape and by this, because of the plant cells’ rectangular shape (in case the plant cell is rectagular, for not all plant cells are like that), the close packing of these cells will leave no space left. Also, in order for a plant to grow and develop, the cell wall helps a plant cell to communicate with other plant cells. For that, the cell wall has the plasmodesmata, which allows encoded information molecules to pass between plant cells.





Pathogens