Fernbank Museum of Natural History

Fernbank Museum Press Kit

SENSING NATURE

This permanent exhibition demonstrates how the senses perceive the natural world by collecting and transmitting information to the brain in response to the matter, energy, mechanical action or chemical properties within the surrounding environment. Using interactive stations, visitors learn basic scientific concepts and how the same principles are utilized by each of the five senses.

This ever-changing exhibition often has something new each time visitors return. Interactive stations, which feature lasers, thermal sensors, vibrations, special effects, lights, mirrors, motion and acoustics, explore the senses and are rotated out with new ones regularly.

Vision
Nearly one-third of the human brain's capacity is devoted to analyzing information taken in by the eyes, which are sensitive to a range of electromagnetic waves.

Stations such as the "Cheshire Cat" reveal the complex fundamentals of sight. A friend sits on the opposite side of a mirror, which separates what the eyes see into two different views. Most of the time people's eyes see almost the same view, but here the positioning of the mirror causes one eye to see the friend and the other to see a blank screen. Moving one hand in front of the blank screen causes the movement to overpower the stationary image of the friend, and parts of that friend's face start to disappear, leaving only a portion -- such as a smile -- as the views merge together.

The colors we see correspond to specific wavelengths in the spectrum. Although the special receptors of the human eye can detect only a small portion of this spectrum, we are able to see a world enriched by millions of tints.

In "Colored Shadows," visitors learn how the colors of the light spectrum combine to create white light. This station combines the red, blue and green colors of the light spectrum from three angles. When visitors make shadows by blocking one or more color, they do not form black shadows. Shadows in nature are black because we block all the colors of the light spectrum. But here, the separated light spectrum produces colored shadows.

Sound
Sound is a product of motion. Molecules vibrate and produce sound waves that travel through solids, liquids and gases. Sound waves in air are repeating pulses of pressure that cause vibrations in the thin membrane of the eardrum.

The changes in vibrations result in us hearing different sounds. The "Bells" station reflects the various sound vibrations produced by rubbing a bow on a sand-covered metal platform. Here we can "see" the sound because the vibration leaves a pattern in the loose sand.

Touch
Touch is a sense that allows us to experience human contact and use our entire body to explore the world. Touch relies on definite physical facts such as pressure against the skin and hardness of a surface. Different receptors in the skin communicate temperature, pain and body position by responding to vibrations and thermal properties of surfaces in our immediate environment.

The "Thermoscope" demonstrates this by producing a false-color image corresponding to different body temperatures. If someone's fingertips feel cold, visitors can compare the thermal image produced to that of the person's palm, which is likely warmer.

Taste and Smell
Taste and smell are called the chemical senses because they respond to particular molecules. Because odors can be detected through the back of the throat as well as through the nose, smell strongly affects taste.

Many chemicals stimulate smell and contribute to the wide range of flavors we enjoy in food and drink. We have only a limited set of taste sensations, such as sweet, sour, salty and bitter, but these are enhanced by the aromas that food releases as we eat it.

Fernbank is continuing to develop this area with new smell stations and descriptive taste models.

Senses Working Together
Weather is one of the many examples of how our senses combine to make us aware of our environment. For example, we can smell, feel, hear, see and even taste rain. More dangerous weather, such as tornadoes, triggers the senses to provide us with natural warnings to seek shelter.

A section sponsored in part by The Weather Channel and AT&T Broadband showcases drastic storm footage, a simulated tornado and a popular television forecasting station, where visitors get to deliver the weather update. This area gives visitors the opportunity to apply their new sensory knowledge and recognize how the senses work together every day.

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