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ACTIVITY ZONE
ACTIVITY 1
Aim
To study smell as the reason of taste.
Materials required
Some sugar or jaggery
Procedure
Ä Put some sugar in your mouth.
Ä Feel the taste of the sugar.
Ä After sometime, block your nose between thumb and index finger.
Ä Breath through mouth and put some amount of sugar in your mouth.
Ä Repeat the above steps with your lunch.

Observation
In the case of sugar, even after blocking the nose, there is no difference in its taste.
As sugar has no smell, that could contribute to its taste. In the case of lunch, blocking the nose makes a difference in the taste of
various food items. This is because the lunch has taste as well as smell. So, for full appreciation of its taste, gustatory receptors on
tongue and olfactory recptors in the nose are required.

Check Yourself
1. Why does the food seem tasteless when you have bad cold?
Ans The taste is basically a smell or flavour. When we have cold the olfactory receptors present in nose are blocked. So food seems tasteless.
2. Why mouth cavity does not give smell of food?
Ans Olfactory receptor present in nose helps in smell detection whereas mouth does not have smell receptor.
3. Why do you avoid any food which is not smelling well?
Ans Because it gives distasteful feelings.

ACTIVITY 2
Aim
To study the response of plant to light.
Materials Required
Conical flask, small piece of wire mesh, water, two or three freshly germinated bean seeds and cardboard box open from one
side.
Procedure
1. Fill a conical flask with water.
2. Cover the neck of the flask with a wire mesh.
3. Place 2-3 freshly germinated bean seeds on the wire mesh.
4. Keep this flask in the cardboard box in such a manner that the open side of the box receives light coming from the window.
5. Observe the plant after 2-3 days.
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6. Turn the flask so that the shoots are away from the light and roots are towards the light.
7. Keep the apparatus undisturbed in this condition for few days.

Open
window

Cardboard

Wire mesh Plant shoots

Conical flask
Plant root

Response of the plant to the direction of light

Observation
1. In the first observation, after 2-3 days of experiment it is found that the shoots bend towards light and roots away from light.
2. In the second observation, when the flask was turned, it was seen after few days that the shoots and roots have grown again by
bending towards and away from light respectively.
Conclusion
This shows that the shoots of plant respond by showing growth movement towards the light, i.e. positive phototropism and
roots of plant respond by showing growth movement away from the light, i.e. negative phototropism.

Check Yourself
1. Which type of movement is shown by the plant in given activity?
Ans In the given activity, plant shows the tropic movement, i.e. phototropism.
2. The information below shows the function of the responses of plants such as
(i) to gain mineral salts from the soil
(ii) to get support
Name the response related with the above mentioned.
Ans (i) Positive geotropism
(ii) Nastic movement- movement of curvature.
3. Based on the diagram given below, which part of the plant can be represented by P?

Negative Positive
phototropism P hydrotropism

Ans The part of the plant represented by P is roots.

4. The table shows a tropism and the stimulus involved
Types of tropism Stimulus
Geotropism X
Phototropism Y
Hydrotropism Z

Write the stimuli X, Y and Z.

Ans X—Gravity. Y—Light. Z—Water.