What's that smell? Do you hear that noise? Taste this! Look at me! Feel this, isn't it soft? When you hear, or even use these phrases, you probably don't stop to think about why we use them. Well, it's because of our senses. Without us even knowing, our sense organs (nose, eyes, ears, tongue, and skin) are taking in information and sending it to the brain for processing. If we didn't have them, we would not be able to smell, see, hear, taste, or touch anything! Talk about a boring life.

Our senses are the physical means by which all living things see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. Each sense collects informaton about the world and detects changes within the body. Both people and animals get all of their knowledge from their senses, and that is why our senses are so important.

All senses depend on the working nervous system. Our sense organs start to work when something stimulates special nerve cells called receptors in a sense organ. We have five main sense organs. They are the eyes, nose, ears, tongue, and skin. Once stimulated, the receptors send nerve impulses along sensory nerves to the brain. Your brain then tells you what the stimulus is. For example, your sound receptors would be bombarded by billions of sound waves. When these signals reach the part of the brain called the cerebral cortex, we become conscious of the sounds. If you need to have a better overview of the nervous system, you can check out the following sites:

• Newton's Apple - What Do Our Brains Contain?
  
• Neuroscience for Kids - Explore the Nervous System

Our group really learned a lot about the senses while creating this website. We hope that you are able to get just as much out of it. Please feel free to comment about anything on the site by e-mailing us. Also, don't forget to sign the guestbook! Thanks for visiting our site. Come back soon!

	Many scientists say we actually have nine senses - sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, pain, blanace, thirst, and hunger.
	Hearing, sight, taste, touch, and smell are known as our external senses. They provide information about the outside world.
	Pain, balance, thirst, and hunger are considered to be our internal senses. They provide information about the body and its needs. For example, the sense of hunger shows that the body needs food.

	Minutes From ME - Has good information on all the senses it also has interesting links.
	Amazing Animal Senses - This page has information about tons of animals senses.
	Neuroscience For Kids - Interesting information about all five senses. Scroll down where it says Sensory Systems.