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Consider the sentence:
The teacher showed the students what an elephant looks like.
(This sentence is perhaps more naturally written as 'The teacher showed the students an elephant.' but I need to phrase it this way to explain my question.)
What would be the corresponding verbs for other senses? For instance,
The teacher ______ the students what a rose smells like.
The teacher ______ the students what a fire alarm sounds like.
The teacher ______ the students what a mango tastes like.
The teacher ______ the students what a rose smells like.
The teacher ______ the students what a fire alarm sounds like.
The teacher ______ the students what a mango tastes like.
The answer, as stated in the comments, is simply showed.
Consider the second sense of show in Collins (my emphasis):
(transitive) to present to view; exhibit
Essentially, you are putting on display some characteristic of an item. While you can be more specific, this would be the idiomatic way of expressing this. One other possibility is highlight, but that is more natural if you are contrasting a property of an object with another.
I agree with both the comments. Show can serve all the blanks in your sentences; however, I'd like to give some options here since there are two events where senses are involved. I cannot show you the sense I feel!
Note that I take this statement of yours - This sentence is perhaps more naturally written as 'The teacher showed the students an elephant.' So, I consider that you actually want to say that the teacher showed the students an elephant. and not The teacher showed the students what an elephant looks like.
It's more technical but correct.
So,
The teacher gave olfactive demonstration of a rose.
The teacher demonstrated the (sound of) fire alarm to the students.
The teacher gave gustatorial demonstration of a mango.
look better to me.
