Try this
Things to do online and at home.
A selection of online and hands on activities that relate to the science behind this project. No special equipment required.
Taste bud test
See if you can decipher the flavour of fruit sweets with only your mouth and find out the difference between taste and flavour.
You will need
- 1 Tube of fruit flavoured sweets (e.g. fruit pastels)
- A blindfold
- A friend
Directions
- First blindfold your friend (so they can’t see the colour of the sweets) then get them to put out one hand and hold their nose with the other.
- Give them 3 fruit pastels to taste (one at a time!) and record whether they guess the right flavour first, second or third time round.
- Add up the scores. They score 3 if they get it first go, 2 if they get it second, 1 if they get it third go and none if they don’t guess the flavour in three goes.
- Now get your friend to let go of their nose but keep the blindfold on. Do the same test again and add up their scores.
What were their two scores like? The higher the score the better they did. Did they get a higher score with the blindfold on or off?
What's going on?
The flavour of your food is a mixture of what it smells like and what it tastes like. Most of the different flavours of sweets like fruit pastels come from their smell so it takes the power of your nose to tell them apart.
More
Now swap places with your friend and have a go yourself – if you like fruit pastels that is!
