Kristen Sabia’s second-grade science class at North Hills Christian School is studying the five senses and is partaking in science centers and will rotate through six different areas of study.

The combination of science and math is used as the students focused on their sense of taste and smell. Students were given different foods to taste and smell to correlate the two senses. Based on their likes and dislikes, the students collected information and created a bar graph to show their results. The students also made a list of their favorite foods and sorted them into taste categories of sweet, sour, bitter and spicy. Students’ facial expressions were constantly changing as the various foods were tasted.

The children were able to explain to the class what makes them different from each other. They drew a self-portrait and shared it with the class, telling their classmates what they like most about themselves and how God has made them special. This was a lesson in diversity as well as self-confidence.

Investigative skills came into play as the students fingerprinted each other and studied their own unique set of prints. The students looked at all the different fingerprints and categorized them based on the three types of fingerprints which are whorls, loops and arches. This was another confirmation that God has made them all unique. Students recognized how fingerprints are “drawn” and never duplicated.

Students sketched a representation of their eyeball and labeled the cornea (the outer covering of the eye), the sclera (commonly referred to as the “whites” of the eye), the pupil (a black dot in the middle of the eye), the iris (the area of the eye that contains the pigment which gives the eye its color), and the lens which sits directly behind the pupil. This is a clear layer that focuses the light the pupil takes in. The light focuses by the lens will be transmitted onto the retina. Students saw important it is that all the parts of the eye work together so they can see the beauty before them. This was a great example of how the class works together to learn and grow, because the class is made of different students that each see things differently.

A fun and interesting time was had by all as they would place their hands into a brown bag that had different objects in it. The sense of touch was used as they would touch round, square, hard and mushy objects. Their sense of smell was used as they guessed certain scents on cotton balls. Students were amazed at how things could look the same but at the same time smell very different.