SMELL

Our nose has receptors that are sensitive to chemicals. When your nose senses chemical stimuli it sends a message to the brain. A lot of animals depend on their sense of smell for survival. Dogs and cats are far more developed in this area than humans. Even humans, however, have a strong sense of smell. Our sense of smell can save our lives, like when a fire has started, the smell of smoke can alert us to danger. Many environmental factors can impair our sense of smell, like those that influence our sight. And because some objects have similar smells or none at all we can often be misled into thinking they're something that they're not.

EXPERIMENT

The Household "Smelly" Challenge:

Gather some dishes and place some smelly objects on them. Here are a few examples:

CHEWING GUM	ROTTEN FOOD
COFFEE	MINT
GARLIC	TOAST
CHOCOLATE	DETERGENT
ONION	HERBS

Have everyone put blindfolds on and see how well your sense of smell works. Notice if you put the garlic and the onion beside each other it's very difficult to tell them apart. Also, the more strong odors your nose smells, the greater confusion results as you move from one to another - possibly from overwork and the lingering smell of previous objects.