Today was science club. We did loads of activities and experiments about sound. We used the following books for our experiments - Usborne 100 Science experiments, Super Science Experiments and Make it Work! Sound. The authors and publishers of which we are very grateful.
We started off by exploring the garden trying to make the largest sound possible with just one bang. They started small by just exploring the musical instruments, but then explored further by going round the garden. They discovered that the wheelbarrow was the loudest they could find when hit with an object. We discussed a bit about materials, and which ones made the loudest sounds. Evan found that plastic made the least sound, whilst wood was a bit louder and metal was the loudest.
We followed this by a series of activities which I are shown pictorially below.
We used a sound cannon to blow a candle flame... later we took one end off this and were able to actually blow it out.
We then watched a favourite television program called Miracles of Nature (from 18 minutes in)
the episode concerned with Echolocation. The technology information of which is shown here. We followed this up by trying out our own little bit of echolocation in the garden.
Using our own ability to notice if we were in open or closed in spaces by clicking. They did remarkably well. I was very impressed.
The children next had a go at feeling and seeing sound through the effect of the vibrations from a speaker. This was a real hit, and later they demonstrated how the jewels moved by bouncing on the trampoline.
More seeing the effect of sound through vibrations on a drum - this time sugar on top of a stretched balloon over a glass. All of them loved the end of this activity which involved the tongue doing in the inevitable.
Next we looked at amplification using funnels in the form of making a duck sound using a paper cup, string and a wet towel. Evan explored what happened without the wetness and without the cup, and found that without the wetness there wasn't the sound at all, and without the cup it was a quiet noise. Plus, they all made megaphones which were super effective and simple, a great way to feel vibrations of the voice on your lips.
Now this strange looking photo we are demonstrating a tuning fork. We literally have forks connected to thread wrapped to our fingers which are in turn sitting on our ears. The sound is transferred and we hear it really loud after we dong the fork onto a hard surface.
We changed the pitch a few times by adding extra water and keeping them at different levels.
The whole session was super quick, and was a platform to inspire and start learning about the subject of sound. I would hope the children now have a few ideas of how to explore these concepts themselves at their own pace now. There was a bit of discussion here and there about the scientific conclusions we can make from our findings, but we did keep it fairly light and exploratory.
We started off by exploring the garden trying to make the largest sound possible with just one bang. They started small by just exploring the musical instruments, but then explored further by going round the garden. They discovered that the wheelbarrow was the loudest they could find when hit with an object. We discussed a bit about materials, and which ones made the loudest sounds. Evan found that plastic made the least sound, whilst wood was a bit louder and metal was the loudest.
We followed this by a series of activities which I are shown pictorially below.
Using our own ability to notice if we were in open or closed in spaces by clicking. They did remarkably well. I was very impressed.
The children next had a go at feeling and seeing sound through the effect of the vibrations from a speaker. This was a real hit, and later they demonstrated how the jewels moved by bouncing on the trampoline.
We changed the pitch a few times by adding extra water and keeping them at different levels.
The whole session was super quick, and was a platform to inspire and start learning about the subject of sound. I would hope the children now have a few ideas of how to explore these concepts themselves at their own pace now. There was a bit of discussion here and there about the scientific conclusions we can make from our findings, but we did keep it fairly light and exploratory.
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