Phospholipid and Membrane Transport

Don’t tell your students about membranes and how/why they form – let them discover the spontaneous formation of membranes for themselves using this new field test kit featuring the amphipathic structure of phospholipids – with their hydrophilic heads and hydrophobic tails. Your students will explore the chemical structure of a phospholipid and then construct a phospholipid monolayer, a micelle and a bilayer leading to an understanding of the plasma membrane structure. Additional components of this kit allow students to construct lipid bilayers and consider the role of transport proteins in moving ions and small molecules across membranes.