Our senses help us to understand the world around us! There are 5 ways we can do this: with sight (eyes), hearing (ears), smell (nose), touch (fingers), and taste (tongue). Animals rely on their senses to survive in the wild. Many animals have adaptations that help them to improve their sense of sight, hearing, smell, touch or taste! Let’s explore. 

This activity can be completed indoors or outdoors. We are going to adapt our own senses to mimic how animals use theirs! 

Sight: We use our eyes to look around and see during the day, but we can’t see very well at night. Some animals, like owls, have amazing sight. Their vision is very strong and also allows them to see at night. Owls' eyes are fixed to the front of their head. They cannot move their eyes from side to side. Since they can’t move their eyes, owls move their head to see all around them. Let’s pretend to have owl eyes! 

1. Take your hands and pretend that they are binoculars

2. Place your “binoculars” in front of your eyes. You shouldn’t be able to see to the left or right.

3.  Now move your head to look around the room as if you were an owl looking for prey! 

4. Do you prefer having to turn your head to see around you like an owl, or do you like being able to move your eyes side to side to see what is around us?

Hearing: We use our ears to listen, just like animals! Some animals have way better hearing than humans do. For example, deer use their large ears to detect sounds in the distance. Let’s practice listening with our deer ears! 

1. Cup your hands as if you were going to scoop up some water

2. Place your cupped hands right behind your ears 

3. Listen closely! 

4. Can you hear more clearly than before? 

Smell: Our nose detects different smells around us, we recognize things that smell good, bad and funky! Animals use their sense of smell for lots of things. Without a sense of smell, they wouldn’t be able to find food, a mate, escape predators or learn about their habitat! Animals, like people, will often avoid bad smells. Skunks for example, know this and release a bad smell that stops predators from eating them because they smell too bad to eat! Let’s use our sense of smell to try to find the following scents:

• 1. Something that smells sweet

  2. Something that smells sour

  3. Something that smells bad

  4. Something that smells minty 

Touch: Our sense of touch can tell us when something is hot or cold, how something feels, and where we are in relation to other items. Cats use their whiskers to help him to feel the space around them and know if it’s safe to travel to! For example, if a cat is trying to move through a small tunnel, they will feel the space is safe to travel through as long as their whiskers do not touch the tunnel.  Let’s practice using our sense of touch! 

1. Have a partner fill a bag with mystery items (anything you have around you will work)

2. Cover your eyes with a blindfold, make sure you can’t peak! 

3. Reach into the bag and take out one item at a time. Use your sense of touch to feel the item and try to describe it (is it smooth? Hard? Fuzzy? Rough? Soft? Heavy? Light?) 

4. Try to guess what each item is!

Taste: Our taste buds are located on our tongue, and help us determine what foods and flavours we like or don’t like. Unlike us, catfish have taste buds all over their body! They have long whiskers, called barbels, that help them taste and smell! Most of their taste buds are found near their mouth, but their entire body is covered in taste receptors!  If you were a catfish, you would be able to taste a slice of pizza just by sitting on it! Catfish do not have the best vision, so they use these receptors to help locate prey. 

• Can you name some of your favourite foods and describe how they taste (sweet, salty, sour, spicy)?