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Published on 12/06/17

On Friday 26th May we were treated to a very pleasant aroma of citrus fruits and essential oils coming from the H block.

The year group had just spent five days in these rooms doing exams so they needed a lighter activity to finish off the week. The classrooms were transformed into mini science labs and scientists from food flavourings company Treatt arrived to deliver tasting and smelling activities based around the theme 'senses'. 

Girls were first asked to itentifiy a range of essential oils using their noses and then doing some experiments with nose holding to understand the connection between smell and taste when itentifying flavours. In another room the students were divided into teams and asked to blend together a range of 10 basic perfumes to create their own - they had to create a name for it as well of course.

The Students were also asked to taste drinks and rank them in order of sweetness, the students then used an 'Abbe' refractometer to confirm their sugar concentration. Another group tasted two different coloured drinks and tried to describe the two different flavour profiles. The object here was to show how the appearance of food influences our perception. With this in mind the girls went on to to link a sound to a particular flavour combination. The question is posed, "what relationship is there between sound and taste?” 

We are extremely grateful to the scientists from Treatt for giving up their time and expertise to give our girls such a valuable learning experience.  The students will now go on to develop their work on the senses during Integrated Learning Week which takes place from the 19-23rd June.