Above is a slide showing all of the stages of the cell cycle in an onion's root tip cells. If you have not yet completed the Where's Waldo activity, use this picture instead of taking your own from the microscope. Screenshot it and copy it into a Google Doc. In order to annotate it, you will need to convert it to a pdf document. To download as a pdf, click the file menu; download; then pdf document. It will be stored in your files, unless you move it to your Google Drive. When you open the pdf, click on the pencil icon in the upper right hand corner to annotate. Once you have annotated the picture, you may screenshot the picture [ctrl + shift + the button above the '6' key] and then paste it back into your Google Doc so you can write your paragraph. Below the picture, write an explanation for each stage, explaining how you know it is that stage.

Tips and Tricks

#1 Each onion root cell has a square/rectangular cell wall at the outer edge.

#2 Cells are in interphase most of the time. Remember that during interphase, the DNA is in the form of chromatin, which is uncoiled like spaghetti. It is too thin to see under a light microscope, but it does pick up the dark stain. There is a nuclear membrane present during interphase, so the nucleus has a nice, smooth edge (circle or oval).

#3 During Prophase, the nuclear membrane dissolves, so you won't see a nice smooth edge to the group of chromosomes. Also, the DNA condenses from chromatin into chromosomes. This is why they look like dark, little worms.

#4 Telophase and cytokinesis happen at the same time. Since plants cells, like onions, have cell walls, cytokinesis looks different in plant cells. Look at the document, "Plant cells versus animal cells" on the mitosis page of this site for details.