The Five Senses
Everyone has senses. These senses are touch, sight, smell, sound, and taste. They help us live and play in our homes, do kid's science in our schools, and help our environment. Let's review the five senses, and what they help us do!
Sight
Our sense of sight allows us to see everything around. We can see objects with our eyes. Every time we look at something, we see its color, shape, and how far away it is. Our eyes are able to see because it uses the light from the sun or from bulbs and candles. The light enters our eyes and is adjusted by our eyes so that we can see clearly. Our eyes are able to fix our seeing sense no matter how much light there is. For a quick kid's science project, turn the lights in your room on and look around. Next, turn the lights off, you won't be able to see anything at first but wait a while. After a while, you will find that you can see more objects than when the light had just been turned off. Your eyes adjusted to the very little light!
Smell
The sense of smell tells us if something is stinky or if it smells nice. We use our noses for smelling. Our noses are able to do this because everything around us has tiny pieces that can give off smell. We can call these tiny bits odor molecules or particles. These tiny bits go up our noses, and our noses tell us if the object has a nice or bad smell. For a quick kid's science project, test your sense of smell by going into the kitchen and taking a deep breath of what's being cooked. Next cover your eyes with your hands and take another smell. The smell got stronger, didn't it? Do this again when you make your own air freshener, the answer as to why that is will be explained at the end of the project!
Taste
The yummiest sense! Our tongues are what allows us to taste. There are four basic tastes and they are salty, bitter, sour, and sweet. Just like our sense of smell, the tiny bits that make up our food have a taste that can be detected by our tongues. Our tongues tell us if the taste is good or not. A good kid's science project is to go to the kitchen and eat different kinds of fruit. Notice how each fruit is sweet, but different. Your amazing sense is able to taste even the smallest differences in food!
Touch
The sense of touch is one of the most sensitive. This is why our skin can feel the smallest changes. Our skin allows us to feel the wind on our face, the pain of an ant bite, the warmth of a hug, the crawling of a bug, and so much more! Our sense of touch helps us become comfortable in our environment by telling us right away if we feel something that isn't nice. The kid's science project in the project section shows us different things to touch, and how there are different kinds of smoothness.
Hearing
Whenever we hear a dog barking, our teacher talking, or our friends laughing, our ears are doing their job! Our ears are what we use to hear. We will know almost instantly when something makes noise. We can hear so many sounds at one time. The louder a sound is, this means the closer the thing making the sound is to us. Why? This is because sound travels through the air and into our ears. The kid's science project in the project section shows us how our eardrum works. Our eardrum is found inside our ears, and it's the job of the eardrum to hear all the sounds!
