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How to Build a Plant Cell Diorama

Crafting a diorama of a plant cell is an excellent way to learn the individual parts that make up the cell. It is also an inexpensive educational activity, because the nucleus, organelles, cell walls and other components can be created with household goods and common craft materials. Green paint is an essential part of this project, because it indicates the importance of chlorophyll, the material in plant cell biology that gives plants their green color.

Things You'll Need

Shoe box
Dark green paint
Yellow paint
Medium green paint
Light green paint
Paintbrush
Permanent marker
Glue
7 toothpicks
Craft pompom
Oval beads, three colors
Small jar lid
Bottle cap
Pink paint
Purple paint
Dried penne pasta, four pieces
4 dried navy beans
4 wide rubber bands
Pen
Paper
Scissors

Instructions

- 1
  Remove the the lid of shoe box. Paint the outside of the box dark green to represent the cell wall. Paint the edges of the box yellow to represent the cell membrane. Paint the inside of the box medium green to represent the cytoplasm.
- 2
  Turn the box up on its side so that one of the long sides forms the floor of the diorama. Paint a large circular area that covers the middle of the floor and the middle-bottom of the back wall using the light green paint. This represents the large central vacuole. Trace the area with a permanent marker to indicate the vacuole membrane.
- 3
  Glue the craft pompom onto the large central vacuole to represent the druse crystal. Glue five toothpicks beside each other onto the large central vacuole, plus two more toothpicks separated from the group. These represent the raphide crystals.
- 4
  Glue three oval beads of one color onto the floor of the diorama to represent the mitochondria. Glue four oval beads of the second color onto the walls of the diorama to represent the chloroplasts. Glue one oval bead of the third color onto the left wall to represent the amyloplast.
- 5
  Paint the jar lid pink to represent the nucleus. Paint the bottle cap purple to represent the nucleolus. Glue the bottle cap onto the bottom of the jar lid once the paint has dried. Glue the lid with the nucleolus facing outward onto the diorama's back wall, beside the large central vacuole.
- 6
  Glue the four pieces of penne pasta beside each other on the right wall to represent the Golgi apparatus. Glue the four navy beans beside the pasta to represent Golgi vesicles.
- 7
  Draw large dots onto two wide rubber bands with the permanent marker. Fold them in half and glue them onto the left side of the nucleus to represent the rough endoplasmic reticulum. Fold the remaining two rubber bands in half and glue them onto the right side of the nucleus to represent the smooth endoplasmic reticulum. Draw small dots onto the cytoplasm directly beside the smooth endoplasmic reticulum with the permanent marker to indicate the ribosomes.
- 8
  Make labels by writing the name of every cell component onto the paper with your pen. Cut out each name and glue it in place beside its matching component on the diorama.

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