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Week 3 · Module overview

Week 3 — The Cell & Membrane Transport

Human Anatomy and Physiology I Free sample edition

Why this matters

A future nurse checking an IV bag, a cook watching salted lettuce wilt, and an athlete whose muscles keep firing all rely on one cell border.

In plain language

Every cell in your body is wrapped in a thin border, the plasma membrane (the cell's outer skin, which decides what gets in and out). Inside, small working parts called organelles (tiny structures, each with its own job) build, ship, digest, and power the cell. This week you learn the traffic rules at that border: some things drift across downhill for free, and others are pumped uphill at a cost in energy. You also learn to predict which way water (the body's solvent) moves when a cell sits in a salty or a watery bath, and why a bag of fluid in a clinic is mixed to match your cells. One protein in that border, a pump, spends 1 ATP to move 3 sodium ions out and 2 potassium ions in, and your nerve and muscle weeks later in the course run on exactly this traffic.

  • Already covered: Week 1 gave you the levels of organization and homeostasis; Week 2 gave you ions, lipids, proteins, and ATP.
  • This week: the membrane, the organelles, passive and active transport, tonicity, and bulk transport.
  • How they connect: Week 2's lipids build the membrane, its proteins are the gates, and ATP pays for uphill moves.
  • Where we're going next: Week 4, Cellular Energy & Protein Synthesis.

Focus

What is inside a cell, how does it decide what crosses its border, and which way does water go?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

  • [ ] describe the phospholipid bilayer and match each organelle to its job
  • [ ] sort a transport as passive, active, or bulk by direction and cost
  • [ ] name a bath's tonicity from the cell's side and say which way water moves
  • [ ] state the pump as 3 Na⁺ out and 2 K⁺ in per ATP

To-do

Plan your week

  1. Read Chapter 3 (45 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
  2. Work the tutorial (60–90 minutes) and practice set (20 minutes).
  3. Run the A&P Lab & Inquiry (2 hours), then the discussion and assignment.
  4. Take the quiz.

This week's checkpoint: name a 500 mOsm/L bath for a 300 mOsm/L model cell and say which way the water moves.

You've got this

Take it in order; ask your instructor if a step snags.

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