The Cell Membrane Game

Cell membrane classroom activity or game

Lately I’ve been exploring interactive games and activities that teachers can use to teach students concepts in science. (Check out my other two recently created games: the Organelle Card Game and Carbon Central) I play a lot of board games and card games (gamers classify these as “tabletop games”) and an idea came to my head: what about creating a hexagon-tile-placing game to create a cell membrane?

Hexagon tiles are used in all sorts of tabletop games and they are often used for creating unique game boards or maps. Why not use transport proteins, glycolipids, glycoproteins, cholesterol molecules, and receptor proteins in a membrane on these tiles to make unique cell membranes?

This cell membrane is almost complete

In this quick and easy to learn game, students take turns choosing face-up tiles and must plan ahead to pick the best tiles for their cell membrane to earn the most points. At any time in the game, students can rearrange the tiles on their own mat (after all, it is a fluid mosaic model!)

In this printable and cut-out game set, I include instructions for teachers for setup and I include easy-to-hand-to-students instruction pages as well. You can find this game on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Teacher instructions and printing and cutting instructions for the cell membrane game.

Hope your students love this game! I had a lot of fun making it!

Carbon Central: A Chemistry Card Game

Roll-and-Write Protein Sequence Game