38 HUMANS A S ORGANISMS

Put one hand in each of the left-hand and right-hand basins. Wait for one minute,
stirring the water gently with your fingers.
Move your right hand into the middle basin, wait for a few seconds, then return it
to the cold water.
How does your right hand feel in the middle basin? (It feels warm. )
Move your left hand into the middle basin, wait for a few seconds, then return it
to the hot water.
? How does your left hand feel in the middle basin? ( It feels cool.)
Now put both hands together into the middle basin.
? How do they feel? (The right hand feels warm; the left hand feels cool.)
How do you explain the fact that your hands feel differently in water of the same
temperature? (What the skin of the hands detects is change in temperature, i.e.
that conditions are cooler or warmer than they were before. )

This activity makes a very clear a n d direct contrast between the ways in which
human skin and a thermometer respond to temperature: our skin does not measure
temperature at all. This has important practical consequences. For example, great
care is needed not to overheat water being used for a bath, especially for babies. To
someone who has already had their hands in warm water, bath-water which does
not feel especially hot may in reality be hot enough to cause pain or even scald an
infant. One way to avoid this is to test the temperature of a baby's bath by dipping
an elbow in the water, rather than a hand.

Activity 3 . 1 0. 8

Sensitivity t o touch
Human skin responds both to contact with solid objects and to pressure from them.
Pressure sensitivity tells us how hard an object is pressing on the skin. Touch, which
children can more easily investigate, tells us which parts of the body are in contact
with objects and, in some parts of the skin, something about their surface texture.
The following investigation is simple but requires quite a lot of concentration.

Detecting texture
Equipment: Pieces of very coarse (60 grit) abrasive paper or cloth, about 2 x Scm. Finer abrasives
will not be effective. (Cutting this material will blunt any blade: use a craft-knife with an old blade
which can then be discarded.)

Press the skin of your forearm with the smooth side of the abrasive sheet, then
with the rough side.
Carry out the same test on the skin of your upper lip.
Which area of skin is more sensitive ? (The lip, because it detected the roughness of
the sheet much more distinctly.)
Test other areas of skin in the same way. You could try: the palm of the hand; the
calf of the leg; a finger-tip; cheek and forehead. In each case, ask yourself if you
can feel the difference between the rough and smooth sides of the sheet, and how
distinctly.
? Which was the most sensitive area of skin you tested ? ( Usually, the lips.)