Level: Brownies

Girls will earn the Senses Try It after completing all the activities.

Dixie cups (4 per girl)

10 Scissors

12 bandanas

Markers

Copies of Jack O’Lantern/face and fish/bowl patterns

Straws

Tape

Copies of: Taste center handout

Copies of: Taste center on the tongue hand out

Copies of: Your own tongue map hand out

Cups of water (1 per girl)

Cotton swabs (4 per girl)

Glue

Lemon Juice (not diluted)

Sugar (diluted to make sugar water)

Salt (diluted in water)

Unsweetened cocoa (mixed with water to make a paste)

Copies of Sign Language Alphabet (1 per girl)

 

Today we are going to learn about the human senses. Can you name the five senses? They are sight, hearing, touch, taste and smell. You use your senses all the time and you might not even know it. We learn about the world around us through our senses. They pick up messages and send them to our brains. We will start with a smelly experiment.

Items Needed:

• Dixie Cups

• Marker

• Items with distinct smell (bottles of extract work fine)

• Blindfolds

How do you smell things? Is smell a thing? Can you touch it or see it? Extremely small particles, so small that you can’t even see them, called molecules, move through the air to the nose. When these molecules get inside your nose they hit nerve endings called chemoreceptors which send a signal to our brains. The brain either remembers what the smell is, or learns the new smell. Does everyone’s nose work the same? No. Some people have a more sensitive sense of smell. When you have a cold or allergies you may not be able to smell as well.

1. Let’s start by blindfolding everyone. If you do not have enough blindfolds, you can either not use them and have the girls close their eyes, or take turns with the blindfolds.

2. Put a small amount of extract or the smelly item in a cup. Give everyone a chance to smell it and ask them to raise their hand but not to say anything once they have done so. If you wish to prepare the cups ahead of time make sure you write what each item is on the cup.

3. After everyone has had a chance to smell the item, ask the girls what they thought it was. If anyone is having troubles recognizing a smell, let then try it again. Repeat these steps for at least 3 items, or more depending on the size of the group.

4. Ask the girls what their favorite and least favorite smell was?

Need:

• Copies on card stock of Jack o’ Lantern/face and fish/bowl (2 circles make one picture)

• Straws

• Tape

• Crayons

How do your eyes work? Let the girls share their ideas. Light bounces off objects and into your eyes. That light stimulates nerves called rods and cones that send information from the light to the optic nerve in the brain. Our brain sorts the information and turns it into what we see. Can our brain be tricked into seeing something that is not there? Yes. These tricks are called optical illusions. Persistence of vision is when our brain still sees something even after it has moved. One example of this is the blades on a fan. When you look at a fan when it is turned on, it looks blurry doesn’t it? Now we are going to make an optical illusion.

1. Everyone take either the circles for the fish and bowl or the circles for the Jack o’ lantern, and color the pictures. If these are not precut, have the girls cut along the dotted lines.

2. Now tape one of the pictures to your straw.

3. Next take your other picture and tape it to the opposite side. The girls may need help with the tape.

4. Hold the straw between your palms and spin it. The fish should appear to be in the bowl and the Jack o’ lantern face should appear on the pumpkin.

5. If time allows have the girls do the other picture.

Items Needed:

• Copies of "Taste Centers" handout (1 per girl)

• Copies of "Taste Centers on the Tongue" handout (1 per girl)

• Copies of "Your Own Tongue Map" handout (1 per girl)

• Cups of Water (1 per girl)

• Empty Dixie Cups (4 per girl)

• Cotton Swabs (4 per girl)

• Crayons

• Scissors

• Glue

• Lemon Juice (not diluted)

• Sugar (diluted to make sugar water)

• Salt (diluted in water)

• Unsweetened cocoa (mixed with water to make a paste)

Have you ever looked at your tongue in the mirror? Did you notice the bumps on your tongue? Each one of these bumps contains hundreds of taste buds. Taste buds are nerve endings on our tongues and in our mouths that help us taste our food. There are four kinds of taste buds to sense four basic flavors - sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Each taste bud can only taste one flavor.

1. Hand out the "Taste Centers" and the "Taste Centers on the Tongue" sheets to each girl, along with scissors, crayons and glue.

2. How many centers are there to put on the tongue? 7 How many are sweet? 1 How many are sour? 2 How many are salty? 2 How many are bitter? 1

3. Color the pieces making sure each type is a different color, but make the two salty the same color and the two sour the same color.

4. Cut the pieces out and find out where they belong then glue them onto the "Taste Centers on Your Tongue" paper.

Now we are going to map our own tongues to see if our taste buds match the sheet.

5. Handout the "Your Own Tongue Map" handouts. Tell the girls to remember which colors they made salty, sweet, sour and bitter in the last exercise and to use those same colors in this exercise.

6. Hand out a cup of water to each girl.

7. Pass out a small sample of the sugar water to each girl along with a cotton swab. Do not share samples or swabs.

8. Dip the swabs into the sample and taste the sugar. Try to locate the sweet tastebuds. When finished have the girls color on "Your Own Tongue Map" where they tasted sweet, using the same color they had used for sweet earlier.

9. Rinse out mouth with water.

10. Repeat above steps for sour, salty and bitter (cocoa). The cocoa may look like chocolate syrup, but it sure does not taste like it. Use a clean swab and different cup for each taste sample. Make sure the girls rinse their mouths out after each step.

Was your tongue the same as our map that we cut and pasted earlier? If not that is okay too. Everyone sense of taste is different.

Items Needed:

• Copies of sign language alphabet (1 per girl or pair)

What is it like to be missing one of your senses? How do you communicate if you cannot hear? People who cannot hear often use sign language to communicate with others. Does anyone know sign language? It’s okay if you don’t because now we are going to learn how to sign our names using the sign language alphabet.

1. Pass out the sheets of the alphabet.

2. Be patient and try to help the girls as much as you can.

3. Don’t worry if it is not perfect, but encourage the girls to take the sheets and keep practicing at home.

Review:

1. What are the five senses? Hearing, sight, taste, touch and smell

2. What are chemoreceptors? Nerve endings in the nose which pick up molecules to help you smell.

3. What occurs when our brain is tricked into seeing something that is not there? Optical Illusions.

4. What are the four types of taste buds? Sweet, salty, bitter and sour

This page last edited on Monday October 30, 2006.

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