The Grand Cell Water Park The Most Popular Water Park In All Of North America The Grand Cell Water Park is the ultimate destination for water park lovers everywhere. Designed and created by Tyler Wright, it is of top quality and made with the most up-to-date standards in modern architecture and technology. The park and the attractions within it function similarly to a living cell and its organelles. Just like how the main job of the cell is to sustain life, the main job of this park is to provide entertainment for every person who steps foot within its walls.

Cell Membrane The Grand Cell Water Park is surrounded on all sides by a ten foot concrete wall with barbed wire at the top. There are various gates around the perimeter that serve as entrances and exits to the park. You must purchase a ticket in order to be let inside the gates. Tickets are taken at the gates by park officials. The officials decide if a person is allowed to enter or leave the park. This ensures the safety of the people within the park, which is a very high priority. The cell is surrounded by a phospholipid bilayer that is called the cell/plasma membrane. In much of the same way that the concrete wall defines the boundaries of the park, the cell membrane defines the cell boundary. It also regulates the passage of molecules into and out of the cell. This function corresponds with the function of the park officials at the gates and the ticket system. Only people with tickets can enter the park, and only certain molecules are allowed passage into the cell.

Nucleus The park is run by a large-scale computer system. The computer system is the park’s command center, and it controls everything happening in the park. The system contains files with directions that say how everything in the park should be running. The computer system is located in a building roughly in the center of the park. The control center of the cell is the nucleus. The chromosomes in the nucleus contain the DNA that defines what the cell is and controls everything the cell does. This is similar to how the computer system contains files with directions for running the park. The nucleus is surrounded by a membrane called the nuclear envelope that protects the DNA inside. This membrane has the same function as the building that the computer system is in.

Endoplasmic Reticulum The main attraction here at The Grand Cell Water Park is the lazy river. The lazy river winds all about the park giving you an extensive tour as you pass through it. You can enjoy the calmness of the lazy river while floating on an inner tube by or while swimming on your own through the current. The lazy river takes the inner tubes to a large open pool where the tubes are sorted. The endoplasmic reticulum is a complicated system of membranous channels and saccules. It is the transportation network of the cell. Proteins (inner tubes) made by the ribosomes enter the endoplasmic reticulum where they begin to be processed and modified. The endoplasmic reticulum also transports the proteins to the Golgi complex.

Ribosomes The lazy river in the park is dotted with little stations or huts on one side of it. Park workers in the huts inflate inner tubes and put them in the river so that they can be used by visitors. Because there are many of these huts, there are always enough tubes for the people on the lazy river, and there are never people who want inner tubes without them. The rough endoplasmic reticulum in the cell is studded with ribosomes on the side of the membrane that faces the cytoplasm just as the lazy river is dotted with huts on one side. The function of the ribosomes is protein synthesis. Proteins made by the ribosomes move into the endoplasmic reticulum just as inflated inner tubes are put into the lazy river.

Golgi Complex At the end of the lazy river the inner tubes are all collected into a large open pool where they are sorted and made ready for transport. The inner tubes are then transported back to the huts where they are re-inflated and put back into the lazy river. The Golgi complex in a cell processes, packages, and distributes proteins about or from the cell. It transforms newly made proteins into functional ones. It does not work exactly the way the open pool does in the park because the proteins are not transported back to the ribosomes, they are actually secreted from the cell.

Lysosomes Throughout The Grand Cell Water Park there are many garbage cans, trash collection areas and recycling bins. This insures the cleanliness of the park and the proper disposal of waste. Lysosomes exist in all eukaryotic cells. Lysosomes contain enzymes that can digest almost anything in the cell. The main function of lysosomes is the breaking down of unnecessary materials.

Vacuoles There are various snack bars and fast food stands in the park. These satisfy the thirst and hunger of park visitors. There are a variety of food and beverage options available. Visitors with many varying tastes are kept satisfied. A vacuole is a large sac surrounded by a membrane. Vacuoles are used by the cell to store substances such as water, sugars, salts, and proteins. Just like in the park, there are numerous vacuoles in a cell.

Mitochondria In the interior of The Grand Cell Water Park there are power plants that supply the energy needed to run the park. This energy can be distributed throughout the park. Several power plants are necessary because there is a great deal of energy consumed in running the park. The primary function of the mitochondria within a cell is to provide energy by breaking down sugar into ATP. This is analogous to the power plants in the water park that produce energy to run the park. ATP is the form of usable energy for cells and the organelles within them. All energy-requiring processes within a cell use ATP. The production of ATP is called cellular respiration.

Cytoplasm The park grounds are pleasant for the visitors. Care has been taken in the design of the interior of the park so that getting around is easy and all visitors are comfortable. The park grounds encompass all areas within the concrete walls of the park. The cytoplasm is a semi-fluid (gel-like) medium that contains all the organelles in the cell. The reason the cytoplasm exists is so that the organelles maintain their positions in the cell. The cytoplasm is perfectly analogous to the park grounds because the park grounds contain all of the attractions within the park.