3.49 Sense of Smell Lesson for Kids

Fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Homemade apple pie. Garlic bread with butter. Can you imagine those smells? Smell is a very powerful sense, and this lesson will teach you all about how your sense of smell works.

Oh That Smell

The sense of smell is one of the five main senses that humans use to experience the world. Think about all those wonderful smells that make your mouth water. The smell of mom baking brownies or of those amazing waffle cones being made at the ice cream parlor. But not all smells are good ones. Have you ever smelled a skunk? Or what about the smell that hits your nose after your dog has gone to the bathroom?

Think about the process of smelling. Something has to give off a smell, then that smell has to enter our noses and then somehow makes it to our brains. It might seem like magic, but it’s actually a pretty complex process.

Our noses have a special way to tell our brains what something smells like.

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Text：Oh That Smell

The sense of smell is one of the five main senses that humans use to experience the world. Think about all those wonderful smells that make your mouth water. The smell of mom baking brownies or of those amazing waffle cones being made at the ice cream parlor. But not all smells are good ones. Have you ever smelled a skunk? Or what about the smell that hits your nose after your dog has gone to the bathroom?

Think about the process of smelling. Something has to give off a smell, then that smell has to enter our noses and then somehow makes it to our brains. It might seem like magic, but it’s actually a pretty complex process.

Our noses have a special way to tell our brains what something smells like.
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1. Main points: Smell is a crucial sense that allows humans to experience the world, both through pleasant and unpleasant odors. The process of smelling involves odors entering the nose and being processed by the brain to identify the scent.

2. Questions:

• Content Analysis: What is the role of the sense of smell in human experience?
• Contextual Analysis: How does the process of smelling work from perception to brain interpretation?
• Linguistic Analysis: What words in the text describe the variety and impact of different smells?

3. Further Discussion: Why are some smells pleasant to us while others are not?

4. Answers:

• Content Analysis: "The sense of smell is one of the five main senses that humans use to experience the world."
• Contextual Analysis: "Something has to give off a smell, then that smell has to enter our noses and then somehow makes it to our brains."
• Linguistic Analysis: Words like "wonderful smells," "mouth water," "amazing," "not all smells are good ones," and "hits your nose" describe the variety and impact of different smells.

How it Works

Let’s look at fresh baked cookies. When the cookies are sitting on the tray on the stove, they are actually emitting tiny scent molecules that contain the smell we know and love. Now, we can’t see those molecules with our eyes, so for now let’s imagine they look like tiny cookie men floating through the air. There are billions of those little cookie men floating in all directions away from the cookies, but we can’t see them because they are too small. They spread out, which is why you can smell those cookies in every room in the house.

If you could image that the steam from this coffee was the smell molecules, they would spread out from the cup and enter our noses.

Once those cookie men molecules get to your nose, they enter and climb up inside. At the back of your nose are tiny little hairs called cilia. Those little hairs are responsible for catching the little cookie scent molecules.

Once they catch the little guys, the cilia send a signal to our brains through our smell factory, called the Olfactory Nerve. Our smell factory can actually detect thousands of different smells. Our brains receive the signal from the Olfactory Nerve and translate it into what we know as smell.

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Text：## How it Works

Let’s look at fresh baked cookies. When the cookies are sitting on the tray on the stove, they are actually emitting tiny scent molecules that contain the smell we know and love. Now, we can’t see those molecules with our eyes, so for now let’s imagine they look like tiny cookie men floating through the air. There are billions of those little cookie men floating in all directions away from the cookies, but we can’t see them because they are too small. They spread out, which is why you can smell those cookies in every room in the house.

Once those cookie men molecules get to your nose, they enter and climb up inside. At the back of your nose are tiny little hairs called cilia. Those little hairs are responsible for catching the little cookie scent molecules.

Once they catch the little guys, the cilia send a signal to our brains through our smell factory, called the Olfactory Nerve. Our smell factory can actually detect thousands of different smells. Our brains receive the signal from the Olfactory Nerve and translate it into what we know as smell.

1. Main points: The process of smelling involves scent molecules, like those from freshly baked cookies, entering the nose and being caught by cilia. These cilia then send signals to the brain via the Olfactory Nerve, which translates them into recognizable smells.

2. Questions:

• Content Analysis: How do scent molecules from objects like cookies lead to the sensation of smell?
• Contextual Analysis: What is the role of the cilia and Olfactory Nerve in the process of smelling?
• Linguistic Analysis: What words in the text describe the journey of scent molecules and their detection?

3. Further Discussion: How does the ability to detect a wide range of smells benefit humans?

4. Answers:

• Content Analysis: "Scent molecules… enter and climb up inside [the nose]… caught by cilia."
• Contextual Analysis: "The cilia send a signal to our brains through our smell factory, called the Olfactory Nerve."
• Linguistic Analysis: Words like "emitting," "floating," "catching," "signal," and "translate" describe the journey of scent molecules and their detection.

Memory, Smells and Other Facts

If you smell a barbecue, what happens (besides your stomach rumbling at the thought of a juicy burger)? I’ll bet your brain will bring up memories of times in your past where you’ve smelt that same smell. Smell is very closely linked to memory, so smells can quickly bring up strong memories that we associate with them. If the smell is associated with either a very happy, sad or scary time, the memory can be even stronger. Sometimes it might even be a smell that you haven’t smelled in years that brings up a memory you haven’t thought about in a long time.

Smells, like this barbecue, can bring back memories.

Smell can help us understand the world around us. If there’s a fire in the middle of the night, it might be your sense of smell that alerts you to the smoke. We can often know what is happening around us based on smell. If you left those cookies in the oven too long, it’s our noses smelling the burning dough that alerts us to take action.

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Text：If you smell a barbecue, what happens (besides your stomach rumbling at the thought of a juicy burger)? I’ll bet your brain will bring up memories of times in your past where you’ve smelt that same smell. Smell is very closely linked to memory, so smells can quickly bring up strong memories that we associate with them. If the smell is associated with either a very happy, sad or scary time, the memory can be even stronger. Sometimes it might even be a smell that you haven’t smelled in years that brings up a memory you haven’t thought about in a long time.

Smells, like this barbecue, can bring back memories.

Smell can help us understand the world around us. If there’s a fire in the middle of the night, it might be your sense of smell that alerts you to the smoke. We can often know what is happening around us based on smell. If you left those cookies in the oven too long, it’s our noses smelling the burning dough that alerts us to take action.

1. Main points: Smell is closely linked to memory, capable of evoking strong emotional recollections. It also plays a crucial role in alerting us to our surroundings, such as detecting smoke from a fire or burnt food in the oven.

2. Questions:

• Content Analysis: How does the sense of smell relate to memory and awareness of one’s environment?
• Contextual Analysis: Why is the connection between smell and memory significant?
• Linguistic Analysis: What words in the text describe the relationship between smell, memory, and environmental awareness?

3. Further Discussion: How might the sense of smell influence our behavior or decisions based on past experiences?

4. Answers:

• Content Analysis: "Smell is very closely linked to memory… smells can quickly bring up strong memories… your sense of smell that alerts you to the smoke."
• Contextual Analysis: The connection between smell and memory is significant because it can evoke strong emotional responses and memories.
• Linguistic Analysis: Words like "linked," "bring up," "memories," "alerts," and "awareness" describe the relationship between smell, memory, and environmental awareness.

Lesson Summary

Smell is one of our five senses and is strongly connected to our memories. Objects that smell give off scent molecules that float through our noses and are caught in the tiny at the back of our noses called cilia. Then our smell factory called the olfactory nerve sends the signal to our brains which translates the smell.