What's a molecule?

This activity will take 15 minutes, is for ages 11 to 14 with no supervision needed. You can do this activity anywhere!

When you zoom in, you’ll see that almost everything in your body is made of molecules.

It's (almost) all molecules

Have you ever wondered what the world around us is made up of? The food we eat, the trees, the ground, even our own bodies – loads of things are made up of molecules.

Molecules are built up from even smaller bits called atoms. Atoms bind together to make molecules.

Why do we need to know about molecules?

To understand how your body works, we need to understand how molecules in your body are made and how they work.

Your cells make molecules called proteins. Proteins are large, complicated molecules that have important jobs in your body. At the Crick, our scientists use special machines that can work out exactly what makes up a protein, down to its individual atoms.

What's inside your body?

Two children look delighted while playing with a science activity

From the outside, you look like you.

Two children look through magnifying lasses

If you look inside your body, you can see different organs, all with special jobs. For example, your stomach breaks down food and your heart pumps blood.

A young person looks through a microscope

Look through a microscope and you can see everything is made of tiny building blocks called cells. There are different types of cells – some help your muscles move, others carry oxygen in your blood.

A young person looks at a screen showing something magnified by an electron microscope

Zoom in even further and with the help of special machines we can measure the molecules that make up your cells.

Zoom in incredibly close and there are atoms so small you can’t see them with your eyes – even with a powerful microscope. There are over 100 different atoms, and these connect to each other in different ways to form the different molecules in your body.