Need a fun little project to stretch some young minds? Try our scent-sational experiment!
Recently, my children were talking with a friend of theirs about a school project involving the smell of cinnamon and it sparked an idea. I sent the kids off to find some bandanas to use as blindfolds while I assembled our sensory experiment with items from the kitchen. Within minutes, we were ready to test their sense of smell!
The children sat at the table blindfolded with a plate, napkin, and glass of water in front of each of them. I began by giving spoonfuls of different foods, which they tried to guess based on smell. If no one guessed correctly, they then tasted the food.
Between foods they cleansed their palates with water. The kids were giggling and guessing and trying to be the first to correctly name what they were smelling.
I was surprised how difficult it was for them to recognize some common foods, including honey and potato chips. Cocoa powder, ketchup, and pickles were all easy to identify through smell. Some of our other food items were maple syrup, cheese, and cereal. Have fun exploring your kitchen through your noses!
Fun Nose Facts
- Smelling is technically called olfaction.
- Our sense of smell is the only sense with direct paths to our brain's hippocampus and the amygdala. This is why certain smells can trigger memories.
- Babies have blurry vision for the first two months of their lives so they recognize their mothers by their scents.
- If someone doesn't have the ability to smell, it's called anosmia. If someone has a very strong sense of smell, it's called hyperosmia. If things don't smell the way they should, that person has dysosmia.
- Humans have about 12 million olfactory receptor cells. That might sound like a lot, but bloodhounds have about 4 billion! No wonder dogs can smell so much better than people.
- Your nose is really powerful... the particles dispersed by a sneeze can travel 100 miles per hour!
- The Maori people in New Zealand press noses as a way to greet each other.
