Doing sound waves: get an airzooka Interesting approach to sound levels for Y8: Use a datalogger to record sound intensity produced by ear phones by holding the ear piece directly on the sensor. Many students will have an mp3 player or cd player (some may even have a walkman) unless your school has banned them. Ask them to set the volume to their normal listening level. One of my students this morning registered 100dbA as the ambient level with peaks up to 115dbA. This was in a 10s sample. Damping sound. If you can raid the music dept:
Doing sound waves: get an airzooka Interesting approach to sound levels for Y8: Use a datalogger to record sound intensity produced by ear phones by holding the ear piece directly on the sensor. Many students will have an mp3 player or cd player (some may even have a walkman) unless your school has banned them. Ask them to set the volume to their normal listening level. One of my students this morning registered 100dbA as the ambient level with peaks up to 115dbA. This was in a 10s sample.
Damping sound. If you can raid the music dept: variety of instruments using different types of vibrations - brass, stringed, percussive. Alll can be damped by touching the appropriate areas that are vibrating and pupils will hear the difference get a copy of a videoclip ahowing sound breaking glass (mythbusters one is floating around the web). Or the mythbusters brown note get some simple buzzers and unilab kits, get pupils to build a paper box over the top of it and glue different materials inside eg one do foil, one felt etc and see which one has the most damping effect pictures of simple recording studios showing acoustic insulation on the walls
current reports about ipods damaging hearing could be used in comprehension/marketplace activities.
use a pendulum to demonstrate damping effect and compare it to sound wave oscillations. Dampen a slinky spring while showing the soundwave to show the physical effect on the wave
show ear protectors show concert footage with large amplifiers and use as a start point for discussing ear damage
build simple electromagnet and put a paper cone on one end (ie simple speaker) and see if it amplifies the buzzing of the EM