ACTIVITY TITLE: Making Sense of it All

SUBJECT AREAS: Science, Language Arts, Art

YOUR INVESTIGATION:

A strange crime has been committed and the authorities are counting on you, Basil Bloodhound, to "sniff out" the perpetrator. The culprit has swiped a bottle of the rare perfume, P.U.#5 from Madame Sniffy's boudoire. You must use your fine o lfactory abilities to find the thief. The police are trying to create a smell-detector to help them with future crimes. Use your knowledge of smell to help them come up with a robotic nose. Give a presentation of your model and how it works.

QUESTIONS TO GUIDE YOU:

1. What is meant by "smell"?
2. Make a diagram of the parts of the nose.
3. How does the nose sense different odors?
4. What are receptor cells? How do they transmit the sense of smell?
5. Try 2 of the experiments to determine how well you can distinguish different odors.

SITE TO SEARCH:

http://weber.u.washington.edu/~chudler/chsense.html


Activity created by:
Janet Golden
East Hills School, Roslyn, NY