By Joyce Arnold’s Fifth-Grade Class, Fairfield North Elementary School, Indian Springs, Ohio Original Title: Does the Nose Know?
Editor’s Note: This inquiry is a creative treasure from our Dragonfly Magazine articles (1997) that captures the timeless curiosity of students as they bridge the gap between animal behavior and human biology. It serves as a wonderful reminder that science starts with simply watching our pets.
The Spark
It all started with Peanuts and Popcorn. While most people see peanuts and popcorn as movie theater snacks, to us, they are our favorite classroom pets: two very active guinea pigs. By watching them, we became fascinated by how animals talk to each other.
We expanded our search, interviewing a veterinarian and observing Ms. Calabria’s cat and our principal’s dog. We learned that dogs bark and wag their tails, while cats purr or hiss to ward off enemies. But the biggest discovery was scent. Whether it was a dog marking territory or a cat rubbing against a person to “claim” them, smell was a major part of their language.
We wondered: Animals communicate using their sense of smell—can humans do the same with our noses?
The Prediction
We had two main theories before we started our test:
- We predicted we would be successful in gathering and communicating information to one another using only our noses.
- We also predicted that some people might struggle if they had a “stuffed-up” nose or a cold, making it impossible to transfer the scent information.
How We Investigated
To turn our classroom into a “scent laboratory,” we used cotton balls, straight pins, and five different food extracts: peppermint, orange, lemon, anise (which smells like licorice!), and spearmint.
Our teacher dipped the cotton balls in the scents and pinned one to every student’s shoulder. The catch? No one knew who had which smell. Our challenge was to sniff our way through the classroom, find others with the same scent, and form a “Scent Family”. Once we found our family, we had to use our noses again to find our “home space”—a specific spot in the room marked with our group’s extract.
What We Found
We proved that humans can communicate through scent! However, it wasn’t always easy.
We discovered that you can make mistakes if you aren’t careful—at first, two different groups thought they were both “Spearmint”. It taught us that smelling is like listening; you have to pay close attention to get the message right.
The Speed of Scent: We timed how long it took to find our homes. The “Anise” group was the fastest, while “Orange” was the slowest. We concluded that orange must be the faintest scent.
The Afternoon Mystery: We ranked the scents from strongest to weakest in the morning and again in the afternoon. While we thought Anise would be the strongest all day, Spearmint actually rose to the top by the afternoon! We think this happened because the spearmint was an oil-based extract, which might not evaporate as fast as the others.
Go Wild: Your Turn!
Can you create a “Smelly Language”?
- Create a Message Board: Assign different scents to simple phrases (e.g., Peppermint = “Let’s go play,” Lemon = “I’m hungry”).
- Test the Duration: See how long a “scent message” stays on a board before it disappears.
- The Eraser Challenge: If you want to change the message, how do you “erase” a smell?
The Field Guide (Educator’s Sidebar)
- Subject/Grade Level: Life Science / 4th-6th Grade
- Inquiry Focus: Animal Behavior, Human Senses, and Experimental Variables (Oil-based vs. Alcohol-based extracts).
- The Science Behind It: Animals use chemoreception (scent) to convey complex information about territory, identity, and emotion. While humans primarily rely on vision and sound, our olfactory system is capable of sophisticated recognition and can be used to navigate social groups.
- Standards Connection: Engaging in Argument from Evidence; Planning and Carrying Out Investigations.
- Materials Needed: Cotton balls, safety pins, various food extracts (Peppermint, Lemon, Orange, Anise, Spearmint), and a stopwatch.