In this unit, students will identify the body’s five different senses—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching. Students will explore what body parts are involved in each of these senses and experience how the senses interpret their surrounding environment. Students will also learn how we take care of the different senses and that certain devices can enhance or change how the senses work.

Over the course of the unit, students will explore each of the five senses by following a young girl and her aunt at a carnival. The sights, sounds, and smells of an exciting place is the springboard by which each of the five senses is explored. Then, students take a trip to an eye doctor and learn about how glasses can help people whose vision is not what they want it to be. The unit Our Five Senses provides students the opportunity to explore concepts that include the following:

• What are human senses?
• What is vision, and what body parts allow us to see?
• What is hearing, and what body parts enable us to hear?
• What are scents, and how do we smell them?
• How do we detect the taste of food?
• How do our bodies sense contact?
• How can we take care of our senses?

CKSci is informed by the NGSS, which encourages student learning through hands-on activities and collecting data. This activity-centered approach requires, at times, that schools collect or purchase materials and equipment that will be needed to complete activities.

Complete materials supply list for CKSci Unit 5: Our Five Senses