Name______________________________________________ Date_________

Period_____

Osmosis Jones Worksheet

The movie is set in a fictionalized version of the human body which resembles a large city,
where micro-organisms or any being based in organisms are anthropomorphic and centers
on Frank Detorre, a zookeeper.
Osmosis Jones, a white blood cell teams up with Drix, a cold pill, against Thrax, the deadly
Scarlet Fever virus, who plans to kill Frank in forty-eight hours and other characters living
within him.
Since the human body is fictionalized as a city in the film:
 _______________ vessels and arteries resemble freeways and highways
 nerve endings and ______________ System resemble power lines and electrical
substations
 lymph nodes resemble police stations
 ______________ functions as an airport with arrivals
 urinary__________________functions as a cruise ship terminal with departures to
leave the body
 bowels resemble a city ____________and a harbor
 inner nose resembles a dam
 _____________functions as an amusement park ("See World")
 a ____________ resembles a nightclub
 ___________________resembles a city hall and a power plant.

1. What type of cell is Jones?

2. What is the “gooey, white saccous-membranous” feature that he says is surrounding

him?

3. When Jones moves through a wall in his attempt to catch the virus that escaped in the
patrol car, he passes through a crack to get to the other side. What kind of membrane
would this wall be considered if it only lets certain things (like Jones) through?
4. When Thrax burns a cell, you see structures floating away that look like ball-and-stick
models that you may use in chemistry class. What do these structures represent and
why are they seen when the cells burn up?

5. What would be the eventual effect on his cells if Frank continues to eat “more sodium”
without drinking some water? Why?

6. Bonus: What trace element does he really need to avoid muscle cramps?

7. What organelle are the vehicles traveling on?

What organelle would the vehicles be?

8. What are the beads that Thrax has on his chain?

9. What might Jones look like if Drix hadn’t “saved his cytoplasm”?

10. Why did the entire body respond to the changes that occurred to the DNA?

11. What substance did Thrax fall into that killed him?
12. In the hierarchy of life listed below, there are characters of structures from the move that
represent different levels of life. Match each level to the character that represents it.
 _____ Structures that floated away when a
character was killed by Thrax

_____ Jones’ nucleus

_____ Osmosis Jones

_____ Walls (like the one Jones passed A. biosphere

through)
B. cell
_____ Buildings (like Cerebellum Hall)
C. community
_____ Frank
D. ecosystem
_____ Frank and Shane
E. molecule
_____ All of the living things in Frank’s town
F. organ
_____ Baltimore
G. organelle
_____ Earth
H. organism

I. population

J. tissue

Bonus: Do some research to find out what type of virus Thrax is. (Hint: Recall
what he is known by in the virus community.)