is everything! Curriculum Links Technology: Technological Capability Science Making Sense of the Natural World English: Viewing, Listening, Writing, Presenting Links to: Art, Science, Mathematics. Levels 2-5   Using Our Senses Tuning in to Flavour When we think offood, what are the words that come quickly to mind? Have pupils brainstorm food words for five minutes and display as a list. Now have pupils concentrate on flavour words and make a list of adjectives that describe the flavours of food, eg delicious - sweet - sour Have pupils define meanings of the following more unusual taste words: tart picquant bland aromatic savoury rancid tangy bitter Have pupils list their favourite fruit/s and write short statements describing what they particularly like about the fruit/s • Pupils identify and list the five senses, eg sight, sound, feel, smell, taste • Which of the senses do they most use or think are the most important when choosing a piece of fruit to eat? • Can fruit have a sound? (imagine an apple without a crunch) Challenge pupils to come up with other fruit sound words. About Taste Just how do we taste things? Taste Zones of the Tongue salt sour bitter sweet Photocopy off the copymaster above Explain that there are only four basic tastes that we are capable of detecting and the ‘receptors’ for these tastes are concentrated in different parts of the tongue. Prepare food samples for a blindfold tasting representing the four tastes sweet honey, jam, apple sour lemon, vinegar, salt salami, cheese, vegemite bitter coffee, lemon pith Pupils take test in pairs. Can they place each sample in the proper category? Record results. Take the test again but have pupils hold their nose. Compare the results. Before clearing away samples, have pupils experiment with the food and try and identify the different taste zones on their tongues. About Taste continued Explain to the pupils that taste is really a combination of several senses including smell and the feel of the food in the mouth. Pupils experiment by smelling a piece of apple while eating a piece of potato. Did it taste like apple? What gave the show away (the feel in the mouth)? What can the pupils now say about how they choose any food or drink to consume. Discuss and come up with a list of factors they would consider, eg ‘It must look good’, ‘It must smell good’, ‘It must taste good’, ‘It must feel good’. let’s get really creative At the Advertising Agency Explain to the pupils that many firms and companies will go to an advertising agency when they have anew product to launch. At the agency there will be a group of people who are known as the ‘creatives’. They will have the task of making the product as appealing as possible to the public. It must be so appealing that people will want to buy it. The Scenario The Greggs and Refresh team have developed several new jelly and powdered drink flavours that they know will be popular during the summer. Each group in the class becomes a ‘creative team’that is responsible for one new jelly or drink. Each creative team has the task of … coming up with a new, exciting name for their product/flavour to design eye catching and attractive packaging to design in-store promotion posters to design a letterbox flyer to compose and write a radio advertisement of 30 seconds including a musical jingle enact a television advertisement compose a rap for your product The creative team must take into account the following… the age group they are appealing to the image of the product, eg healthy, fun, tasty the senses which the product will appeal to, eg an amazing colour or really different taste Creative teams make presentations to the class who evaluate it using the above criteria. Creative tasting notes Some of the ‘most creative’ and often unintelligible writing about taste can be found in wine reviews. Most lifestyle magazines include these reviews, eg Listener, North & South … Have pupils find, read and share some of the most descriptive gems from these reviews, eg ‘hints of toast and smoky bacon …’ ‘rich mouth filling, honeysuckle, melon, peach and citrus flavours…’ Imitating this genre of writing, have the pupils prepare their own tasting notes on at least 3 different flavoured drinks.The name of the flavour can not be used in the tasting notes After reading the notes aloud, challenge other pupils to identify which drink was being described. Share your lessons with other teachers – email us, send a word/works file or pdf. Click the email icon. www.teachingonline.org is published by s&s Publishing P.O. Box 229, Turangi, (Southern Lake Taupo) New Zealand. Phone in NZ: (07) 386 6667 Phone Outside NZ 0064-7-386 6667 email: sspub@reap.org.nz