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Smelly Science
Learn how some animal mothers and babies use their sense of smell to identify each other.
What you need:
- Four, six, or eight participants
- Empty film canisters (or similar containers with lids)
- Cotton balls (one per participant)
- Selection of fragrances (enough for half of the participants): perfume, air freshener, clear liquid soap, liquid sweetener
What you do:
- Take half of the cotton balls. Place a different scent on each ball. Then drop each ball into its own canister and seal it shut. Put this group of canisters aside.
- Repeat this step with the remaining cotton balls to make an identical set of smells.
- Separate the participants into two teams: Mothers and Babies.
- Distribute one set of canisters to the Mothers and one set to the Babies. See that each participant gets a canister.
- Explain to everyone that many animal babies have their own special smell. The special smell helps a mother to tell her baby from another animal's baby. The smell can also help her to find her baby when it is lost. Tell each Mother to open her canister and sniff the special smell of her Baby. Ask the Mothers to find their Babies by matching the scents in the canisters with those in the Baby canisters.
- After the Mothers have found their Babies, mix up the Mother canisters and redistribute them to the Mothers. Do the same for the Baby team. Now let the Babies find their Mothers.
What you talk about:
Ask participants:
- How did you keep from getting your smell mixed up with the other smells? (Possible answers: Kept smelling it; kept thinking about the smell in my head; smell reminded me of something)
- How do you think a mother animal might remember her baby's scent? (Possible answers: She smells the baby a lot so she won't forget the smell; she thinks about the smell a lot.)
- What smells do you like to remember? Why?
Illustration: Art Explosion