THE SCIENCE PROJEC T An infographic on animal senses
1 Work in pairs. Can you answer the questions? 1 Which continents do elephants live in?
Elephants and
2 How do they know where they are going? 3 How strong is their trunk (their long nose)? 4 What do they use their ears for?
2 Read the infographic and check your answers to Exercise 1.
How to research
3 Which of these things should you do when you research? Tick the correct answers. 1 Decide the main information you want before doing research. 2 Use questions in search engines, e.g. How well can elephants see? 3 Read articles from start to finish. 4 Read the contents list of articles or the titles of sections and then decide what you need to read.
Elephants’ eyes are on the side of their head and have three eyelids, one above the eye, one below, like humans, and an almost transparent one they use to keep dust, dirt and water out. However, their eyes aren’t very strong. They normally use their trunks to know where they are going. In fact, the leader of a group of elephants is sometimes blind.
✓ Elephants can hear extremely well because they have big ears. They can hear faint sounds, including the calls of elephants up to 1.5 km away. Their ears are about 1/6 of the size of their bodies. They also use them to keep cool.
5 Make sure the information is fact and not opinion. 6 Only check information on one site. 7 Take notes as you read.
Elephants have to move their trunk around and smell the air all the time in order to find water, so they have an excellent sense of smell. They can detect water up to 12 km away.
Elephants use their rough trunks to explore the environment and care for their young. They also use it to fight. The trunk can lift objects that weigh up to 250 kg. They can also sense tiny vibrations in the ground with their feet. Scientists think this must be the reason why many survived the Asian Tsunami of 2004. They felt the vibrations of the earthquake and moved to higher ground.
