This project requires only a few basic materials, but you must compose these materials in a specific way in order for the project to make sense. The needed materials are the downy inside of a pillow, three lengths of plastic tubing, colored markers, 3-by-5-inch cards, a pen and a cutting implement strong enough to cut through the tubing material that you choose. If you use lengths of garden hose, you will need a much stronger implement than you would if you use thin lengths of irrigation tubing.
Cut the downy interior of the pillow in two unequal pieces. One piece should account for about 60 percent of the whole. Place the pieces of tubing between the split pieces of pillow down so that two enter from one end and the third tube exits via the other end. Color this last piece of tubing in multicolored segments, each about an inch long.
When you are finished, the model should rest on a small table or board, with the smaller piece of pillow on top of the tubes that run between the pillow pieces. Labels near the two tubes entering one end of the model should identify them as ribonucleic acids, or RNA. Labels attached to the pillow pieces should identify them as ribosomal subunits. The last label should identify the multicolored segment of tubing as an amino acid.
On the table next to the model, leave a printed explanation of what each part of the model does. This explanation should also explain how the RNA strands are emitted by the nucleus in a cell and later captured by two pieces of ribosome that come together and encompass them. Finally, explain that the multicolored tubing is a chain of amino acids that the ribosome is constructing out of the RNA.