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Overview: In this lesson, children learn what sound is, the characteristics of sound, and that sounds are all around us.
Booklink: Sounds All Around by Wendy Pffeffer, Harper Collins Children's Books, 1999. ISBN 0-06-445177-1
Science Activity Link: Children explore sounds and their characteristics, sounds from the environment and the body, pitch, amplitude, and finally, animal sounds, especially bats and echolocation.
Objective: Children will explore sounds and explain them in term of vibration, pitch, amplitude, all the while participating in activities that illustrate each of these sound phenomena.
Science Processes and Content: Processes-observing, inferring, predicting, recognizing variables, communicating, defining operationally, and recognizing and manipulating variables. Content-sound is caused by vibration, sounds are all around us, pitch, amplitude, sounds travel through different materials, and animals use sounds to communicate (bats, elephants, etc.).
National Science Education Standards: Unifying Concepts and Processes, (1) Science as Inquiry, (2) Physical Science, (5) Science and Technology
Materials: The book Sounds All Around, the local environment or classroom, soda straws, wide craft sticks, Styrofoam cups and string, paperclips, scissors, one or two masks or blindfolds
Procedure:
1. In the early stages of this lesson, give the children some experiences with sound. Begin by asking the children to close their eyes, lay their heads down, listen for one minute, and then write down or tell you all the sounds that they heard, or take the children for an outdoors walk to listen to and identify sounds.
2. Next, have the children listen to body sounds. Have them place their fingers on various parts of their bodies while you lead them in making sounds; fingers on the lips and say "m-m-m," fingers on the back of the neck to say "ing-ing-ing," fingers on each side of the nose to say "n-n-n," hand on your chest to say "ah-ah-h-h," and fingers on the top of your head to say "e-e-e." Ask the children what they felt. Point out that what they felt are called 'vibrations.' Sounds are caused by vibrations.
3. Now give the children a tongue depressor or wide craft stick and ask them to predict what sounds they will make as they hold the stick between their teeth. Then have them plunk one end of the craft stick while moving it slowly left or right between their clenched teeth. Point out the changes in sound and describe these different sounds as changes in 'pitch'. When the stick is shorter, the vibrations are shorter. This is a high pitch. When the stick is longer, the vibrations are longer and this is a low pitch.
4. Give each child a soda straw. Challenge them to make a sound. They can blow through the straw, tap it on their desk, etc. Cut pieces off the end of the straw forming a triangular end of the straw. Blow through the straw, making a buzzing sound. Challenge the children to make a sound similar to yours. When they cannot, ask them to explain why you can make such a sound and they can't. The variables they infer might include the following-"you practiced," "you play a musical instrument," " you altered the straw," etc. Ask them to predict what will happen to the sound if you cut the ends off the straw, making it shorter as you continue to blow through it. (Higher pitch). Demonstrate it for the children and discuss the results.
5. Now take a straw, similar to the one in # 4, blow through it to make the buzzing noise and ask what would happen to the sound if you placed a Styrofoam cup over the end. (The sound is muted or less loud). Now put a straw-sized hole in the bottom of the cup, insert the straw and ask the children to predict what will happen to the sound now. (It will get louder.) Explain that the loudness or softness of sound is called 'amplitude'.
6. Once the children have had some sound experiences, this is a wonderful time to introduce the book Sounds All Around. Read and discuss the book with the children, reinforcing the concepts of vibration, pitch, amplitude, etc.
7. Extend this activity by simulating how bats are able to locate moths by echolocation. With your class, form a circle about 3 m in diameter with the children shoulder to shoulder. In the center, have one child pretend to be a blindfolded bat and another child, a moth (not blindfolded). In this game of tag, the bat must continuously say "bat-bat-bat" while the moth says "moth-moth-moth" each time the bat says "bat." This is to simulate echolocation, with the bat's high pitched squeaks bouncing off the moth giving the bat the moth's exact location. You may wish to add a tree into the circle as an obstacle in which the tree says "tree-tree-tree" each time the bat says "bat-bat-bat." Discuss echolocation in bats and in elephants and whales.
Related Books:
The Listening Walk by Paul Showers, Harper Collins Publishers, 1991. ISBN 0-06-443322-6
The Indoor Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown, Harper and Row Publishers, 1942. ISBN 06-020820-1
Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? by Dr. Seuss, Random House, 1970. ISBN 0-394-80622-0
Sound and Light by David Glover, Kingfisher Books, 1993. ISBN 1-85697-935-0
Says Who? by David A. Carter, Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1993. ISBN 0-671-72923-3
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