← Biology Classroom Tools Bio Tool #23 · Biology I Unit 2 · SOL BIO.3 · PWCS LT 2.0–2.5

More Than Organelles: The Cell Song

    Whole song
    84 bpm
    Music
    Parts
    Running on

      A review song for Unit 2, one lyric line to a bar. Each section of the song has its own scene, and each scene shows the job, then breaks the part and shows what stops.

      It plays by itself and loops. The words run along under the picture; the music starts when you press Sound. Choose any numbered scene to loop that one section on the beat. Tempo runs from 70 to 100 beats a minute, so a faster rapper can turn it up and everything, words and pictures, keeps time. The cells, molecules and organs are drawings, not to scale.

      Watch the first take. J. R. Schwebach performs the whole song over the full band: More Than Organelles: The Cell Song (take 1) on YouTube (6:13).

      For teachers

      Where students are

      The song reviews LT 2.0 to 2.5: the 32 Unit 2 words, cell theory and how science builds a theory, prokaryotes and eukaryotes and the protein route, organization and homeostasis, membrane structure, and transport across the membrane. Energy (photosynthesis and respiration) is held for Part 2 with Unit 3.

      The eight scenes

        Three ways to run it

        • Loop a scene while you teach a target. Choose its number. The scene repeats on the beat with the sound off, so it can run on the projector while you talk; press Sound if you want the music under it. Link straight to one with ?scene=4 (add &projector=1 to open it projector-ready).
        • Whole song as a warm-up or review. Press Sound and let it run. The words show one line per bar with the next line under it, so the room can read along.
        • Practice and record. Students who want to perform it choose a tempo, pick Beat only or Practice beat, and rap the lines as they come. Record your own records a voice over the beat on the student's own device, plays it back, and saves it there. Nothing uploads.

        Choices in the drawing

        • Every verse ends on a break couplet. The part that verse is about stops working, the music drops to a kick drum, and the picture shows what fails: the Golgi blocked, the pump without ATP, a membrane with no proteins.
        • The nucleus holds the plan (the DNA); it is never called the brain.
        • Water moves toward the side with more dissolved salt. In an isotonic solution water still crosses both ways; there is no net movement.
        • Cholesterol sits between the lipid tails, not on the surface.
        • Word parts are coloured in the lyrics: prefixes and suffixes in red, roots in blue (hypo-, hyper-, iso-; endo-, exo-; phago-, pino-; phospho-lipid; hydro-, -philic, -phobic; uni-, multi-cellular).

        The words

        Students can rewatch from Canvas. Nothing is collected; the only things this device remembers are the Projector, Running on, tempo and music settings.