NCERT Solutions for Curiosity Chapter 2 The Invisible Living World: Beyond Our Naked Eye
Updated on 2026-09-05
About this chapter
The eye can only see things above a certain size. A curved piece of glass, thick in the middle and thin at the edge — shaped like a lentil seed, which is why it was named a lens — makes small things look bigger. Better lenses became microscopes , and microscopes opened the hidden living world. In 1665 Robert Hooke published Micrographia . His microscope magnified 200 to 300 times . Looking at a thin slice of cork he saw many small empty compartments like a honeycomb, and called each one a cell . Around the 1660s Antonie van Leeuwenhoek made better lenses and was the first to clearly see and describe bacteria and blood cells — the Father of Microbiology . Every living body is built of cells. A typical cell has a cell membrane (porous — lets in what life processes need and lets waste out), c
- Chapter opening
- A water-filled flask behaving like a lens
- How small a thing can the eye actually see?
- What Is a Cell?
- — the parts of a cell and what each one does
- Variation in shape and structure of cells
- What Are Microorganisms?
- — recording what pond water and soil suspension contain
- How Are We Connected to Microbes?
- Key players in cleaning the environment
Exercises
- Chapter opening — Probe and ponder Page 8
- A water-filled flask behaving like a lens — Activity 2.1: Let us observe Page 9
- How small a thing can the eye actually see? — In-text Questions Page 9
- Activity 2.2: Let us study a cell — What Is a Cell? Page 11
- Activity 2.3: Let us investigate — What Is a Cell? Page 12
- In-text Questions — — the parts of a cell and what each one does Page 12
- In-text Questions — Variation in shape and structure of cells Page 13
- In-text Questions — What Are the Levels of Organisation in the Body of a Living Organism? Page 14
- In-text Questions — What Are Microorganisms? Page 15
- Activity 2.6: Let us study — — recording what pond water and soil suspension contain Page 16
- In-text Questions — How Are We Connected to Microbes? Page 18
- Activity 2.7: Let us do — Key players in cleaning the environment Page 18
- In-text Questions — — decomposition and natural manure Page 19
- Sections 2.4.1 and 2.4.2 — In-text Questions Page 20
- Ananda Mohan Chakrabarty and the oil-eating bacterium — Be a scientist Page 20
- Activity 2.8: Let us perform — Microorganisms and food Page 20
- Activity 2.9: Let us prepare — Microorganisms and food Page 21
- End-of-chapter question set — Keep the curiosity alive Page 25
- Science · Society · Interdisciplinary Projects — Discover, design, and debate Page 27