Discovering Cells Guided Note Taking Worksheet

Cells were first observed in the late 1600s by Anton van Leeuwenhoek using a single-lens microscope. He discovered microscopic plants, animals, and other organisms that he called "animalcules." The cell theory, developed in the 1830s and 1840s by Schleiden, Schwann, and Virchow, established that all living things are made of one or more cells and that cells are the basic unit of structure and function in living things. Modern microscopes like electron microscopes can magnify specimens up to tens of millions of times using electromagnetic lenses or beams instead of glass lenses.