Cell Molecule Atom + H O A cell is the basic unit of life. mag. 100x mag. 10,000,000x mag. 1,000,000,000x A cell is the basic unit of life. Materials per student: sheet of copy paper Procedure: Draw the 3 boxes, as shown Title each box, draw the unit, record the magnification, and the key statement below. (Change whatever you like!) Show this along with atoms- http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/applets/a2.html You could hurry through this in as little as 10 minutes, or get seriously sidetracked (not hard for me to do) and stretch that to 30. A molecule is a group of atoms. An atom is the smallest unit of an element.