What it shows
Five simple stations test touch, smell, hearing, sight and taste one at a time. Each sense organ collects a different kind of information and sends it to the brain, which works out what the object is.
The science
The skin, nose, ears, eyes and tongue each have receptor cells that respond to one kind of signal: pressure and texture, smell molecules in the air, vibrations, light, or dissolved tastes. Each sends nerve signals to the brain, which compares them with memories to name the object. Using one sense alone is harder than using several together, which is why a blindfolded person takes longer to recognise things.
Materials
Cost: free. Many items come from home or from waste; spare parts such as LEDs, motors and wire are in the store.
- A shoebox with a hand-sized hole (mystery box) and 6 safe objects such as a sponge, a spoon, a comb
- 5 small jars with a cloth over the mouth holding things to smell: orange peel, coffee, soap, cardamom, mint
- 4 closed tins with rice, coins, sand and cotton inside
- Cards with pictures of blurred and sharp shapes
- Clean food samples for tasting such as salt, sugar, lemon, bitter gourd, with separate spoons for each person
- A score sheet
Safety
For this project: Nothing sharp or very small in the mystery box. Each person uses a fresh spoon for tasting and tastes nothing they are allergic to. Smell jars only hold food and soap, never chemicals. Wash hands before the taste station.
Never use mains electricity: power models with cells, batteries or a low-voltage adapter. Sharp and hot tools, flames and lab chemicals need an adult or your teacher beside you. Keep magnets, button cells and small parts away from young children, and wash your hands after making.
All the safety rulesStep by step
8 steps. Do them in order, and test each part before you go on to the next. Write what you notice in a notebook as you go.
Set up the five stations on a table with a score sheet for each visitor.
Touch station: the visitor puts a hand into the mystery box and names each object without looking.
Smell station: the visitor sniffs each covered jar and writes what is inside.
Hearing station: the visitor shakes each tin and guesses what makes the sound.
Sight station: show the blurred card first, then the sharp one, and note when the shape is recognised.
Taste station: the visitor tastes a tiny amount of each sample with a fresh spoon and names salty, sweet, sour or bitter.
Mark each answer right or wrong and total the scores per sense.
Make a bar chart of which sense was easiest and which was hardest for the class.
What you should see
A chart of scores for each sense across many visitors. Most people find touch and taste easy and smell-only identification surprisingly hard, showing that the senses normally work together.
Viva questions
A teacher or a judge will ask how it works. Try to answer each question before you open it, then compare.
1Which organ is for the sense of smell?
The nose.
2Which part of the body decides what the object is?
The brain, using signals from the sense organs.
3Why is it hard to taste food when you have a cold?
Much of flavour comes from smell, and a blocked nose cannot smell.
4Which sense warns you that a pan is hot before you touch it?
Sight, and sometimes smell; touch would warn you too late.
Take it further
Repeat the taste station with the nose pinched shut to show how much taste depends on smell.
Change one thing, measure what happens, and add a table or chart of your readings: that is what turns a model into your own investigation.
Free ebooks for this project
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