Speed Dating Organelles

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Holly Spear, Staff Writer

In Ms. Ingersoll’s living biology class, there is a new way of teaching about organelles. It’s called organelle speed dating, where you make a profile for your organelle and then find your best match with other student’s profiles. “We are doing organelle speed dating, so that you will learn all the other organelles besides the one that you had. So, it’s just kind of a different twist, instead of me just showing a PowerPoint. Trying to get the students more involved,” said Ms. Ingersoll.

Students are required to add many different facts about their organelle. To students more interested in the topic, teachers made the questions similar to something you would find in a Tinder profile. Similar to a profile picture, you need a “cellfie” for your organelle. There are many other questions which include a hashtag, pickup line, and the “occupation” of the organelle. “I think it was an interesting project, and I was able to learn more about organelles,” Lyla Castro said.

Once all the slide shows are submitted, the students go through them and teach each other their facts about the organelles they were assigned. You also need to find similarities and rate the compatibility between your organelle and the others, thus making it into an amusing dating-type activity that creates an easier way for students to learn about the topic; it creates more interest in it too. Students were more entertained and were able to have fun with this project, while still learning about organelles. They then get to interact with other students and learn about their organelle too. In the end students were able learn facts about many organelles, while being able to have fun. “I think it’s pretty fun and it’s fun looking for pickup lines. And I think that the mitochondria is pretty awesome,” said Jocelynn Hanson.