Reaction Times

Learn about our five main senses and test to see which of them allows for the fastest reaction!

Have you ever baked cookies and as the smell wafts out of the oven your mouth starts to water? How did your mouth know that you were ready to eat cookies? Well your body used it’s sense of smell to identify that cookies were nearby and your brain used that information to create a reaction- your mouth watering.

Our brain, hidden away under our nice hard skulls, has the job of taking information from our senses, processing the information,, and then creating a response. Information can be sensed in a lot of different ways, but the main senses are touch, taste, smell, sound, and sight.

In this experiment, we want to see which sense has the fastest reaction: sight, sound, or touch.

Learning Objectives

Students will know

Five common senses
Parts of the body responsible for sensing
The brain’s role in processing information

Students will understand

Different types of information can be received through different senses.
Information is processed in the brain before a response or reaction is created.

Students will be able to

Test to see which sense (sight, sound, or touch) allows for the fastest reaction.

Standards Alignment + Connections

Next Generation Science Standards + Connections

4-LS1-2: Use a model to describe that animals receive different types of information through their senses, process the information in the brain, and respond to the information in different ways.