Boston Children’s Museum
300 Congress Street
Boston, MA 02210-1034
www.BostonKids.org

Boston Children’s Museum once again had a great turn out for Sense of Smell Day. With approximately 1,700 visitors, both children and adults alike enjoyed a wonderful day at the museum participating in over ten scent related activities.


Test Your Smell Memory: Visitors were asked to smell unmarked blue bottles all containing different scents and then see if they could recall from their stored scent memories what they were smelling. Many visitors were very amused by their own ability (or lack thereof) to identify the scents.

The Nose Knows: Visitors were challenged to identify a bottle of spoiled juice and fresh juice, first by looking only; then the caps were removed from the bottles and the challenge repeated using their noses. Visitors learned how important it is to use your nose to alert you if food has gone bad.

Scented Painting
Many of the museum’s youngest guests created paintings with paints scented with oils (wild orchid, lilac, lavender etc.) They were encouraged to use the paint based on the way each one smelled. The results were beautiful, creative and fragrant paintings.

Other activities included:
How Well Do You Smell?: This activity demonstrated how different animals have different senses of smell. Visitors compared the human sense of smell to that of sharks.
Police Dogs: The Massachusetts Canine Response Team unit came with their dogs to demonstrate how the dogs are able to sniff out missing people in the woods with their highly trained sense of smell.

Storytelling: Staff members read What’s that Awful Smell by Heather Tekavec and Arthur’s Nose to an audience of young visitors

How Come Everything Tastes Funny When I Have a Cold?: The connection between taste and smell was explored as guests were challenged to identify different flavored jellybeans with their eyes shut and noses held.

Clean me up, Snotty: Visitors make their own mucous and learned how it is important in keeping noses healthy by trapping dirt and germs.