Episode 5 - How Do We Smell?

You can make a "super-stinky concoction" by putting match heads and ammonia into a jar and letting it sit for a week. Why does this work? The matches contain sulfur. When mixed with ammonia, it creates ammonium sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs.

The project in this episode is:

Did you ever wonder how your nose works? Did you know that the human nose can recognize about ten thousand different smells? Join Ingram and Everett to learn about our sense of smell.

Materials:

About 20 matches
A glass jar with a lid
Wire Cutters
Ammonia

NOTE:

You should have adult permission and supervision to conduct this experiment. The resulting "super-stinky concoction" should be disposed of properly by an adult as well.

Instructions:

Using the wire cutters , cut the heads off of 20 matches.
Place the match heads into the jar.
Add a small amount of ammonia into the jar.
Close the jar immediately and make sure it's tight.
Place the jar in a safe place where it can sit for a full week.
After one week has passed, open the jar and see how the mixture smells. It should smell like rotten eggs.

Nose Facts:

Inside your nose are tiny hairs called cilia. They capture things that try to go up your nose such as germs, dust and odor molecules.
There are also tiny nerves in your nose called olfactory receptor neurons. They register each individual smell and send signals to your brain.
Each human nostril has about twenty million olfactory receptor neurons.
Humans can recognize about ten thousand different smells. If you learned one new smell every day, it would take over twenty-seven years to learn them all.
Smell and taste are related. If you can't smell, you can't taste.
People who can't smell anything are called "anosmic." They have "anosmia." Some people are born anosmic. Others lose their sense of smell due to an illness or accident.
Animals use their sense of smell much more than humans. They can detect danger and can also find food or a mate using smell.