Cell Membrane Critical Thinking Questions

1.  Predicting:  What would happen to a sample of red bllod cells if they were placed in a hypotonnic solution?  Explain your prediction.

Red blood cells that were placed in a hypotonic solution would swell and possibly burst (lyse).  The reason for this is that there is more water than solutes in a hypotonic solutionvwhich causes water to move into the cell.

2.  Inferring:  Would you expect skin cells to contain more or fewer mitochondria than muscle cells?  Explain your answer.

Mitochondira produce energy and muscles cells require more energy than skin cells.  Therefore, skin cells would be expected to contain fewer mitochondria than muscle cells.   

3.  Inferring:  The pancreas, an organ in certain animals, produces enzymes used elsewhere in the animal's digestive system.  Which type of cell structure(s) might produce these enzymes?  Explain your answer.

The type of cell structures that produce enzymes are ribosomes and rough endoplasmic reticulum.  Enzymes are made of proteins and proteins are mode by these two cell structures.

4.  Applying concepts:  As waste chemicals build up in a cell, homeostasis is threatened.  State how diffusion helps a cell maintain homeostasis.

Diffusion helps a cell maintain homeostasis by moving materials from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration.  Since waste chemicals have built up in the cell, there would be a higher concentration inside the cell than outside the cell.  Diffusion will move the waste chemicals out of the cell.

5.  Compare and contrast:  Diffusion and active transport are processes that are inportant to the cell maintenance of homeostasis in organisms.  Compare and contrast the two processes.  Provide at least two differences and one similarity.

Diffusion and active transport are different in that diffusion does not require energy and active transport does.  Also, diffusion moves materials from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration, whereas active transport moves materials froma n area of low concentration to an area of high contentration.  The two processes are similar in that they each move materials across the cell membrane.