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9th grade · Science · Unit 8 of 14

Cell Types, Transport & Specialization

Prokaryotes and eukaryotes, moving molecules across membranes, and how cells specialize.

What your child practices

Practices comparing prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, how cells keep homeostasis by moving molecules (diffusion, osmosis, active transport), how cells specialize through differentiation, and how a disrupted cell cycle can lead to cancer.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: B.5(B); B.5(C); B.6(B); B.6(C) · prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, cell transport and homeostasis, differentiation, and cell cycle disruptions

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Prokaryotic cells (bacteria) have no nucleus; eukaryotic cells do.
  2. Diffusion moves molecules from high to low concentration. Osmosis is water doing this. Active transport uses energy to go the other way.
  3. Homeostasis keeps internal conditions stable. Cells specialize through differentiation.

Example: A red blood cell is placed in pure water. What happens? Water is more concentrated outside the cell. Water moves in by osmosis. Answer: it swells and may burst

Cell Types, Transport & Specialization in Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 8 of 14 in 9th grade Science, after Biomolecules & Enzymes and before DNA, RNA & Proteins.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Facilitated diffusion uses ___ but no energy.

    • ribosomes
    • chloroplasts
    • transport proteins
    • ATP

  2. Question 2

    Stem cells are important because they can…

    • only make skin
    • never divide
    • only make bone
    • develop into many cell types

  3. Question 3

    A red blood cell in very salty water will…

    • divide
    • swell and burst
    • stay the same
    • shrink as water leaves

  4. Question 4

    Checkpoints in the cell cycle help prevent…

    • growth
    • DNA replication ever
    • damaged cells from dividing
    • all cell division

  5. Question 5

    Mitochondria may have come from bacteria that lived inside other cells. This idea is…

    • cell theory
    • endosymbiotic theory
    • spontaneous generation
    • plate tectonics

  6. Question 6

    Why can't large cells survive well?

    • They are prokaryotic
    • Their surface area is too small for their volume to exchange materials
    • They have no membrane
    • They have too much DNA

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