“Cells do all the work, but you as a whole get the credit. So, get this, that’s like the factory workers we read about, right? I mean, the factory, the big thing, that’s what people think of. So, what if the same is true of cells? I mean, what if each cell has a personality?”
It’s random. He’s tying in reading and science in ways I couldn’t expect.
I ask the students to find me something that is alive but has no cells. I ask them to prove it to me empiracly and I then have to explain the definition of empiracle repeatedly.
“Memories live, but have no cells. You could interview people,” a student e-mails.
“Viruses are alive, I think. But they’re smaller than cellls, right? Or not. I don’t really know.”
Quite a few kids take it as a riddle and answer “Love” or “God” and I’m struck by the notion that, because this isn’t a “science classroom,” my students feel the freedom to make random connections that had never crossed my mind.
