Sour, sweet, salty or bitter?

Type of resource: Website

Web address https://www.fizzicseducation.com.au/150-science-experiments/human-body-science/test-your-taste-buds/

Language: English

Description

Experiment to understand how taste buds work.

Scientific concept introduced

Different parts of the tongue are more sensitive to certain tastes.

Creative and critical thinking

Critical Thinking:
– Prediction
– Analysis

Creative Thinking:
– Curiosity
– Imagining

Mathematical reasoning

– Measuring
– Counting
– Categorising

Scientific thinking

– Questioning
– Observing
– Predicting
– Testing
– Analysing
– Reasoning
– Drawing conclusions
– Recording

Learning how to learn

– Engagement in learning
– Following guidelines
– Self-efficacy in learning
– Active listening
– Reflection on learning
– Communication

Additional

– Oral language – listening and following instructions
– Literacy – vocabulary development
– Cooking skills of pouring and straining
– Hand-eye coordination
– Fine motor skills
– Safety in the kitchen

Sour, sweet, salty or bitter?

Overall aims

● to enable pupils to explore how we taste food
● to enable pupils to explore different types of taste
● to develop pupils’ skills in listening and following instructions
● to develop pupils’ cooking skills of stirring and pouring
● to develop pupils’ skills in observing and predicting
● to develop pupils’ skills in counting
● to develop pupils’ skills in measuring (capacity)

Vocabulary – keywords should be understood

Tongue, taste, mouth, sugar, salt, lemon juice, grapefruit juice, salty, sour, sweet,
bitter, solution, dissolve

Expected learning outcomes (operational aims)

The child will be enabled to:
– follow instructions for the experiment
– identify food as tasting sour, sweet, salty or bitter
– count number of tablespoons used
– practice the skill of measuring using a tablespoon
– practice the skills of stirring and pouring
– make observations and predictions during the experiment
– work alone and together in small groups
– create a story in response to the experiment

STEM skills – to which the learning unit is related to

CORE STEM SKILLS

● Asking questions
● Observing
● Predicting
● Testing
● Analysing
● Curiosity
● Imagining
● Measuring (capacity)
● Counting
● Categorising
● Reasoning
● Drawing conclusions

● Recording

ADDITIONAL SKILLS

● Following guidelines
● Engagement in learning
● Self-efficacy in learning
● Active listening
● Hand-eye coordination
● Fine motor skills
● Communication
● Oral language
● Literacy – vocabulary development
● Creative thinking
● Drawing
● Cooking skills of pouring
● Safety in the kitchen

Teaching methodologies/activity outline

Teacher Note: In this experiment, pupils will be working in groups and testing shared solutions, so it’s important to remind them to always test using a clean, unused ice-cream stick.

Introduction:

1. Write the word ‘tongue’ on the board, eliciting what pupils know about the tongue – we use our tongues for tasting; it helps us to identify tastes; the tongue has lots of tiny taste buds on it.
2. Ask pupils to chat in pairs identifying 2 things they like/dislike the taste of, then write a list of these words on the board.
3. Introduce the words sweet, sour, salty and bitter and ask pupils if they can categorise any of the food listed on the board, according to taste.

Activity:
(Ask pupils to work in groups of 5 or 6, taking turns in using the various solutions for
testing).

Materials: (per group)
– Five cups of water (1/2 full)
– A wooden ice cream stick per pupil
– Lemon juice (be aware of potential citrus allergies)

– Fresh Grapefruit juice (again, be aware of potential citrus allergies)
– Salt
– Sugar
– 4 tablespoons
– 4 teaspoons (1 for mixing each solution)

Instructions:
1. Inform pupils that they’re going to begin by making solutions. Explain that a solution is a mixture of 2 or more substances.
2. Ask pupils to predict what they think will happen when they mix the sugar (and the salt) in water. Discuss as a class.
3. Ask each group to do the following and discuss if any of the pupils’ predictions were correct:
(Explain that dissolve means when you mix a substance with a liquid and it looks like the substance has disappeared but it has just mixed in with the liquid).
– dissolve 1 tablespoon of sugar in the first cup of water
– dissolve 1 tablespoon (a different tablespoon) of salt in the second cup of
water
– pour lemon juice into the third cup
– pour grapefruit juice into fourth cup
– leave the fifth cup as a ‘control’ (to compare against at the end of the
experiment)

4. Ask pupils, using a different teaspoon for each solution, to take turns stirring, to mix well.
Taste Testing Procedure
5. Ask pupils to individually take their ice-cream stick and mix it in the salty solution. Ask them to place the stick on the tip, the side, back and middle of their tongue and to identify the taste i.e. salty, sour, sweet, bitter, no taste.
Discuss as a class. Were there certain areas of the tongue where the taste was strongest? Then ask pupils to rinse out their mouths.
6. Repeat step 5 for each of the solutions and the cup of plain water.
7. Discuss the results as a class.

The Science behind how the tongue tastes:
Your sense of taste comes from your taste buds. The taste buds are tiny bumps on your tongue. They are all over the top of your tongue. The taste buds send a message to your brain to tell it what something tastes like. While there is not one particular area on the tongue exclusively for each taste, as all of the tongue is sensitive to all of the tastes, there are stronger sensations in some areas of the tongue for certain tastes.

Conclusion:
Ask pupils in their groups, to draw (or write) a fun, creative story, on their A3 page, about ‘The (an item of food) that was too (sour, sweet, salty, bitter)’, for example:

– The lemon that was too sour
– The lemon that was too sweet
– The apple that was too salty
Each group can use the same title, or alternatively you can assign each group a different title.

Assessment of learning

Pupil observation sheet

Equipment and materials to be used in learning unit (tools, ingredients etc)

1 A3 page per group for creative writing(drawing)

Materials: (per group)
– Five cups of water (1/2 full)
– A wooden ice cream stick per pupil
– Lemon juice (be aware of potential citrus allergies)
– Fresh grapefruit juiced (again, be aware of potential citrus allergies)
– Salt
– Sugar
– 4 tablespoons
– 4 teaspoons (1 for mixing each solution)