Exploring Our World (and Other Worlds)
with Our Senses

Teacher's Notes

Things to Emphasize

1. We learn about the world through our senses.
2. Each sense is important and gives us distinct information about the world around us.
3. The most effective way to receive information about the world around us is to use all five senses.
4. One sense can be used to compensate for another.
5. Our understanding of the world can be impaired by deprivation of one or more senses.
6. The conditions on Mars are such that future space travellers will have to interact with the environment through protective spacesuits.
7. Science investigation involves a multi-step inquiry process: ask an initial question, plan the investigation, record observations and collect data, analyse data to draw a conclusion, and communicate the findings.

Consider the following

Future travellers to Mars will spend all of their time in artificial, mechanically-controlled closed environments, i.e. spaceship, habitat, spacesuit. Will reduced sensory input affect cognitive functioning or psychological well-being?

Activities

1. Take a "Trip". Guide students on a "trip" (of about 15 minutes in duration), around the school, inside and out. Visit places where students will be exposed to a variety of sensory experiences. Back in the classroom engage students in a discussion of the experience. Encourage them to describe the "trip" in terms of their senses.
   
   
2. Language. Create a class chart story of the trip. Start a word wall of sensory vocabulary.
   
   
3. Centres. Relate one aspect of the "trip" through painting, drama, or building centres.
   
   
4. Circle discussion. Ask students to relate trips they take with their families, distinguishing between short ones such as going to the grocery store and longer ones such as visiting relatives or taking vacations.
   
   
5. Reading: A Trip to Mars
   
   Pre-reading
   Ask questions to elicit what students know about the planet Mars.
   Show and discuss pictures from books or downloaded from the Internet.
   
   Reading
   Prepare a "Big Book" from the Blackline Masters of the story, A Trip to Mars and read it with students.
   
   Post-reading
   Give students copies of the Blackline Masters to colour and have them retell the story.
   Ask students to imagine what it would be like if they had to wear a spacesuit whenever they left the house.
   
   
6. Centres. Students express what it would be like to wear a spacesuit through drama, painting and building.
   
   
7. Circle discussion. Look at pictures of the terrain on Mars, (Viking Lander pictures are readily available on the Internet). Discuss the rocky surface. Ask students to predict how easy or difficult it would be to examine the rocks from inside a spacesuit. Bring in a collection of rocks. Ask students to describe the rocks using sight only. Add the vocabulary (e.g. small, smaller, smallest, big, bigger, biggest, colours etc.) to the word wall.
   
   
8. Science Centre. Make available a variety of activities such as:
   
   order the rocks by size
   sort the rocks by colour
   sort the rocks by a student-chosen attribute
   examine the rocks with a magnifying glass
   paint Mars-scapes
   make dioramas of Mars-scapes using shoe boxes and plasticene
   place rocks in the sand table and navigate toy vehicles around them
   make an obstacle course of large blocks to represent rocks and navigate the course
   Activity Sheet, Which is Biggest?
   Activity Sheet, Which is Smallest?
   
   
9. Circle discussion. Invite the students to re-examine the rocks, this time blindfolded and using only their sense of touch. Have students experiment with two "feeling" boxes, (shoe-box size will do), one filled with smooth rocks and the other filled with rough rocks. Invite blindfolded students to place their hands in the box and describe the texture. Invite students to do the same with their bare feet. Develop texture vocabulary with the students and add the vocabulary to the word wall.
   
   
10. Science Centre. Make available a variety of activities such as:
    
    sort the rocks according to texture
    make crayon rubbings of the rocks to use as background in a scene
    weigh the rocks using non-standard measurements
    sort the rocks by weight
    experiment with feeling boxes, some with rough rocks, others with smooth rocks
    
    
11. Circle discussion. Discuss how difficult it will be for astronauts to explore Mars when they must be protected from the environment by a spacesuit. Experiment with different scenarios and ask students to describe "mystery rocks". Have some students blindfolded, some wearing oven mitts or heavy gloves on their hands and some having no restrictions. Lead students to the understanding that our senses give us information and the greater the sensory input, the more information we are able to gather.