Taste helps us, among other things, to select and enjoy food. There are four familiar tastes. Applying the Idea Closure and Assessment List of Activities for this Lesson Encountering the Idea Introduce the lesson by having students dip one end of a Q-Tip in the solutions of salt, sugar, lemon, and baking soda, one substance after another, and having students taste each. After each student has tasted the liquid, the students describe the flavors.
Students clean their tongues after each tasting.
Ask the students to explain what helps them taste the different tastes that were in the solutions. Help them speculate about what happens on the tongue for them to be able to taste. As the students give suggestions, write the relevant ones on the chart to be used later in the Writing Center. The students relate each taste to foods that have similar tastes making a list to be used later. Before reading Taste to the students, ask them what they think it might be about.