Reprinted from Connect
Vol.13 No.2, November/December, 1999
Focus on: The Senses
Grade Level: K-8

Making Sense of Your Senses

Technology for Learning

by Bob Coulter

This issue presents many innovative ways to explore sensory awareness with your students. As you conduct these investigations, be alert for the mathematical dimensions involved. The new math Standards 2000 document which will be published by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in April advocates strongly for just such a link between math and science. As the draft of the document notes, "All curricular areas have mathematical components, and teachers should emphasize the mathematics inherent in the study of these different subjects."

To get you started in exploring the mathematical dimension of your senses, here are three activities which involve the collection and analysis of data. In turn, these activities provide opportunities for a meaningful integration of technology into your classroom — another area highlighted in the new standards. Using computer software or graphing calculators, your students can make tables of the data, calculate statistics, and create graphs - and in the process develop an appreciation for the power of technology as a research tool.

Taste Tests: Perhaps the simplest use of data collection tools involves the classic taste tests. Which brand of cola is preferred? Which flavor of gum is the most popular? Questions such as these provide opportunities for younger students to define research questions and collect and organize their data. Using age-appropriate software (such as The Graph Club by Tom Snyder Productions), your students can see the link between data tables and the graphs they lead to. Beyond simply making graphic representations of the data, you have a wonderful opportunity to develop data literacy skills with your students as they explore the best way to graph their data. For a taste test of 30 class members, which is better—a bar graph or a circle graph?

{fig. 33}Peripheral Vision: One very important sense not often investigated is peripheral vision, or the ability to see what is to each side of us. This skill is of obvious utility to animals fearful of predators, but it is also useful to humans in activities from driving to playing basketball. Which of your students has the best peripheral vision?

One way to find out is to have each student face directly ahead (but free to scan with their eyes) while a classmate on the side holds up a playing card. Mark out angles with tape on the floor to represent degrees away from the center (e.g. every 10 degrees, starting at 0 degrees straight ahead to 90 degrees at the right and left of the test subject). Be sure to have the points at each 10 degrees be the same distance away from the student being tested. The places where the playing card is held should form a quarter of the circle on both the right and left of the student. At what angle can the student/subject correctly identify the card? The angle measure data collected in this activity lends itself to a wide range of analyses including mean and median angle measures and the range of the results. Collecting the data for your entire class should show an interesting range in student’s peripheral vision. More advanced students may want to compare the data for each person’s left and right sides to see if people have a dominant side.

Using software with graphing capabilities enables your upper elementary or middle school class to cultivate their geometry and data skills. Alternatively, a graphing calculator intended for middle school students such as the TI-73 from Texas Instruments could be used. While the graphs are far less elegant, a set of 15 of these handheld data tools can be purchased for approximately the price of a single computer.

Hearing Sounds: A classic sensory awareness game in summer camps is for a group to sit in a circle with one member sitting blindfolded in the middle guarding a treasure. The object of the game is for a person from the circle silently chosen by the teacher to try to steal the treasure by sneaking up on the person in the middle. When this intruder is detected, the person in the middle points in their direction, freezing the would-be thief in place. If the treasure is stolen, that person gets to sit blindfolded in the middle and a new person is chosen from the circle to try to steal the treasure.

This activity lends itself to some interesting data analysis possibilities: What percentage of the time is the treasure stolen? For a given person in the middle, who is able to come the closest? What is the average distance at which the one in the middle can hear someone approaching? Graphs of the set of distance measures collected for a specific individual in the middle (with a variety of classmates approaching) would provide a measure of that person’s hearing acuity. If the students were wild animals, who would survive the best? Repeat this data collection and graphing activity several times to find out which of your "forest animals" would be the best at noticing potential predators. More advanced students could go even further. For example, if you divide and mark the playing area into four sections, you could analyze whether people hear better from the front, the back, or the left or right side.

Each of these activities has presented a way in which math, science, and technology applications can be integrated as you study the senses. Employing computers or graphing calculators provides a "real-world" application for students to use technology to support their inquiry. More important than just providing a nice-looking graph, the data analysis tools can help students to raise questions as well as answer them. Other questions might include, "Are the shorter distances between the people recorded mostly when the person is coming up behind the student in the center or from the side?" Or another question, "Does one’s taste preference depend upon age?" As you and your students become familiar with data tools, you’ll find yourselves asking and answering many questions of the data you’ve collected and going out to collect more.

Bob Coulter - Bob Coulter is director of Mapping the Environment, a program at the Missouri Botanical Garden's Litzsinger Road Ecology Center that supports teachers' efforts to enhance their science curriculum through the use of the Internet and geographic information system (GIS) software. Previously, Bob taught elementary grades for 12 years.
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