Lewis L. Spence
Aim: To produce and measure the intensity (loudness) of a sound
Students are expected to draw from their own experience in describing sound and how it affects their lives and the lives of others.
Describe your world without sound for a week.
How would it affect the people around us?
How do we communicate without sound?
How do we produce sound?
How do we measure the intensity or perceived loudness of a sound?
Activity: Students can explore differences in sound by banging on different objects.
They could experiment on a set of the same type of objects varying in size or length. They should be allowed to make some inferences from the results. From this demonstration the word “pitch” could be introduced.
The use of a sound meter will allow students to produce different sounds at different volumes. They can use a sound meter to measure the loudness from varying distances.
They can be assigned the task of designing a room or a box of a given dimension using plywood for the outer walls. Their primary task should be to use an insulating material on the inside to insulate the sound from getting to the out side environment. To test the effectiveness, a sound source (an alarm clock) is set off inside the closed room or box and the emitting sound is measured from a set distance using a sound meter. This process can be repeated using different insulating materials.
Mind teaser: Which famous musician in his adult life was deaf yet was able to write classical music? How was he able to accomplish such a task?
