An Athlete's Way of Learning Mitosis: By Zack Zebb
In my 8th grade year of middle school, I had an amazing science teacher named Mrs. Simpson. She was an older lady but she had a fiery temper that could make any student quiver in fear. My story is how I learned how Mitosis works, but first let me explain what led up this event. To start with I was a good student in English and Math but science was my weakness, Mitosis was one of those subjects I could not understand. So to remedy this problem I decided to ask my teacher to tutor me on cellular reproduction. The reason that I needed the help was partly for science and so I could keep playing basketball on the team which requires you to hold at least a C average but I had a low C so you get the picture. Anyways back to the biology part of this story, Mrs. Simpson broke mitosis in simpler terms in a way that an athlete like me would understand. She started with Interphase saying that it's like a brawl in a bar or on the field, everyone is mixed together in chaos. "Next, We have" she said. We have the Prophase is a team in a huddle getting ready to play. Then we have Metaphase - in this phase the chromosomes are on each side of the cell like a football team getting ready to play against each other. The next phase she described with a little too much passion was the Anaphase and she used a cheerleader in this example to portray how Ana clears a path before the two teams to walk through. The microtubules connected to the chromosomes grab onto them and pull them back creating a space in the middle. The last two phases Mrs. Simpson went over was Cytokinesis and Telophase, in Telophase the chromosomes are separated by a barrier much like in Cytokinesis, and her description "was imagine a running back is running and encounters a wall. Well that is how these two phases work." This is very true because a barrier forms and two separate cells are formed to describe Cytokinesis she used an example with ana being the main focus. So then Mrs Simpson says "Ana had two children, twins to be exact, and the barrier eventually separates the cell into two diploid cells that have their own chromosomes and this is how cellular reproduction works." After that I knew the difference between meiosis which I didn't have as much trouble learning about and I passed the class with a B plus which made my parents and I [at the time] very happy. The End, and thank you for reading my story. Below I have listed a video of Mitosis and another picture of Mitosis' different phases.
