Which animal tissue is it?
Look at twelve parts of the human body under a microscope and find out what each does, then sort them into epithelial, connective, muscular and nervous tissue.
Core concept
A tissue is a group of similar cells doing one job; animal tissues are epithelial (cover and line), connective (join, support and carry), muscular (contract to move) or nervous (carry messages)
Topic: Tissues
In a big animal, cell: The tiny building block that every living thing is made of. All key words work in teams. A tissue is a group of similar cells that do one job together. Animals have four main kinds. Epithelial tissue covers the body and lines the organs inside: its cells are packed tightly, with no gaps. Connective tissue joins and supports other tissues; its cells sit in a matrix, which is liquid in blood, hard in bone and springy in cartilage. Muscular tissue is made of long fibres that contract to move the body. Nervous tissue is made of neurons, cells with long branches that carry messages quickly.
What you will learn
- Define a tissue.
- Name the four kinds of animal tissue.
- Match a tissue to where it is found and its job.
- Tell the three kinds of muscle apart.
Before you start
- Know that living things are made of cells.
Materials
- Prepared slides of blood, bone, muscle and nerve, if your school has them
Equipment
- A compound microscope
Procedure
- Pick a card, then look at it under the microscope and read what it does.
- Do this for at least eight parts.
- Sort every part into its kind of tissue.