My five senses
Biology · Early Years · The School
Five ways of knowing
Your body has five amazing tools for finding things out: eyes see, ears hear, nose smells, tongue tastes, and skin touches. Scientists call them the five senses. Everything you know about the world came in through one of these five doors.
Which sense told you?
The kettle is bubbling — which sense told you? Hearing! The toast smells ready — smelling! The bath is too hot — touching! Play "which sense told you?" for everything you notice in one hour. You will discover you are sensing all the time without noticing.
The orange experiment
Take an orange. LOOK: what colour, what shape? TOUCH: bumpy or smooth? SMELL: before and after peeling — what changes? LISTEN: does peeling make a sound? TASTE: sweet or sharp? One fruit, five discoveries. That is what real scientists do: explore one thing with every tool they have.
Cut a small piece of apple and a small piece of raw potato, and have a friend hand you one at a time with your eyes shut and your nose firmly pinched. Chew and say which is which. Most people cannot tell — both are just sweetish and crunchy. Let go of your nose and the apple is instantly obvious. Most of what you call taste was arriving through your nose all along.