Summary Use herbs or crushed smelly plants to design your own scented sample or perfume. Science content Biology: Sensing, Organ Systems (4, 5, 6) Chemistry: Physical Changes, Solutions, Mixtures and Separating (2, 4, 5, 6) Science competencies (+ questioning + manipulation + others that are in every activity) Planning/conducting: planning investigations (3 up) Lessons activity is in Smells Herbs Materials smelly herb or plants e.g. lavender, mint and fruit peels, either collected by the teachers, or picked by students from a garden small tubes or vials, with optional necklace string For perfume: mortar and pestle water in a squeeze or dropper bottle optional to regulate water: ½ or ¼ teaspoon measure pipette Procedure Smell the fragrant leaves, flower petals and fruit peels. Choose two or three that you would like to combine into a scent. Crushed herb smelly necklace: Roll the leaves to crush them a little, and stuff them in the pot or necklace. Open it to get a waft of smell. Perfume: Tear the leaves/petals/peel into small pieces and put them in the mortar. Add one small spoonful of water - the less you add the more concentrated your perfume will be. Grind with the pestle - push down while you grind in a circle. Grind until the plants are completely mashed up. Suck up the perfume with a dropper. Put the perfume in a small tube to take home.(Your perfume will smell nice for just a day or two.) Think up a fancy name for your perfume. Professional perfume makers also extract fragrant chemicals from plants using water, or other solvents. They mix different fragrances to design new perfumes. Attached documents perfume_graphics_for_van_dusen.pdf perfume_take_home_sheet.pdf Notes Add the name of the herb to the necklace, and maybe the molecule image for older students. Grades taught Gr K Gr 1 Gr 2 Gr 3 Gr 4 Gr 5
