LESSON RIDING THE - Teach Secondary · 2013-11-22 · wave on a cathode ray oscilloscope (CRO)....
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> CREATE AND PLAY YOUR OWN MUSICAL INSTRUMENT > DEVELOP YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE PHYSICS OF SOUND TODAY YOU WILL... 30 www.teachsecondary.com Sound waves in air (and any fluid medium) are longitudinal waves because particles of the medium through which the sound is transported vibrate parallel to the direction that the sound wave moves. This is most visually demonstrated by a slinky spring stretched out horizontally on a table. Students pull in and release the first coils of the slinky setting up vibrational motion in directions parallel to the direction that the RIDING THE WAVES LESSON PLAN MAKE SURE YOUR LEARNERS NEVER FORGET THE PHYSICS OF SOUND WITH THESE MARVELLOUS MUSICAL ACTIVITIES FROM DR JOANNA RHODES’ PORTFOLIO... STARTER ACTIVITY 54 SUBSCRIBE AT TEACHSECONDARY.COM The conductor puts down his baton and the orchestra rises and takes a bow. But there is a bit of a twist in this assembly. The students are not from the music department and they have not been playing normal instruments. These are learners from a physics lesson and each one has used the physics of music to create and play his or her own musical instrument. Like characters from the hit musical Stomp, the students have performed an exhilarating piece of music demonstrating all the different ways we can create those unusual longitudinal waves that we call sound! In this noisy and amusing lesson students investigate the physics of music by creating and playing their own musical instruments. You could even create an ‘orchestra’ to perform in assembly. The most confident students can follow up their performance with detailed descriptions of how their instruments worked including calculations of the frequencies of sound produced. Others might decorate their instruments and talk about the historical importance of music and its continued value to cultures around the world, thus developing strong cross-curricular links with music and performing arts as well as mathematics, IT and art. energy is transported [Additional Resource 1]. Students need to relate this demonstration to the production of noise and a superb and messy way to do this is to use a non-Newtonian liquid on a speaker cone. This complicated sounding experiment simply involves a corn flour paste on a vibrating bass speaker cone attached to a music player [AR2]. Students should notice that the motion of the corn flour is parallel to the vibrations of the speaker [AR3]. In this homework activity direct students to websites on experimental musical instruments [AR8]. They can chose an invention such as the Bowafridgeaphone, Partch’s chromelodion or hydraulophone [AR9] and use their physics understanding to explain how the instrument works; where the standing wave is set up and how pitch and volume is changed as the musician plays the instrument. Maybe ask students to design and draw their own experimental musical instrument that could be made from found or recycled instruments explaining how the sound will be made and controlled. HOME LEARNING
Transcript of LESSON RIDING THE - Teach Secondary · 2013-11-22 · wave on a cathode ray oscilloscope (CRO)....
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> CREATE AND PLAY YOUR OWNMUSICAL INSTRUMENT> DEVELOP YOUR UNDERSTANDING OFTHE PHYSICS OF SOUND
TODAY YOU WILL...
30 www.teachsecondary.com
Sound waves in air (and any fluidmedium) are longitudinal wavesbecause particles of the mediumthrough which the sound istransported vibrate parallel to thedirection that the sound wavemoves. This is most visuallydemonstrated by a slinky springstretched out horizontally on atable. Students pull in and releasethe first coils of the slinky settingup vibrational motion in directionsparallel to the direction that the
RIDING THEWAVES
LESSONPLAN
MAKE SURE YOUR LEARNERS NEVER FORGET THE PHYSICS OFSOUND WITH THESE MARVELLOUS MUSICAL ACTIVITIES FROM
DR JOANNA RHODES’ PORTFOLIO...
STARTER ACTIVITY
54 SUBSCRIBE AT TEACHSECONDARY.COM
The conductor puts down his baton and the orchestra rises and takes abow. But there is a bit of a twist in this assembly. The students are notfrom the music department and they have not been playing normalinstruments. These are learners from a physics lesson and each onehas used the physics of music to create and play his or her ownmusical instrument. Like characters from the hit musical Stomp, thestudents have performed an exhilarating piece of music demonstratingall the different ways we can create those unusual longitudinal wavesthat we call sound!
In this noisy and amusing lesson students investigate the physics ofmusic by creating and playing their own musical instruments. Youcould even create an ‘orchestra’ to perform in assembly. The mostconfident students can follow up their performance with detaileddescriptions of how their instruments worked including calculations ofthe frequencies of sound produced. Others might decorate theirinstruments and talk about the historical importance of music and itscontinued value to cultures around the world, thus developing strongcross-curricular links with music and performing arts as well asmathematics, IT and art.
energy is transported [AdditionalResource 1]. Students need torelate this demonstration to theproduction of noise and a superband messy way to do this is touse a non-Newtonian liquid on aspeaker cone. This complicatedsounding experiment simplyinvolves a corn flour paste on avibrating bass speaker coneattached to a music player [AR2].Students should notice that the motion of the corn flour isparallel to the vibrations of thespeaker [AR3].
In this homework activity direct students to websites onexperimental musical instruments [AR8]. They can chose aninvention such as the Bowafridgeaphone, Partch’s chromelodionor hydraulophone [AR9] and use their physics understanding toexplain how the instrument works; where the standing wave is setup and how pitch and volume is changed as the musician playsthe instrument. Maybe ask students to design and draw their ownexperimental musical instrument that could be made from foundor recycled instruments explaining how the sound will be madeand controlled.
HOME LEARNING
Lesson plan Science Qx_Layout 1 07/11/2013 17:23 Page 1
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SCIENCE | KS4
1. Let’s make some noise!Invite students to bring in realmusical instruments and maybeborrow some examples from yourmusic faculty. It is good to includeexamples from each set ofinstruments including strings,woodwind, brass and percussion.Use a microphone to change thesound wave into an alternatingcurrent and display the resultingwave on a cathode ray oscilloscope(CRO). Illustrations of what you willsee can be found atGCSEscience.com [AR4]. Ask themusicians to change the pitch (howhigh or low the sound is) and thevolume (how loud the sound is).Students should be encouraged toobserve the effect this has on thewave and to illustrate the differencein wavelength of a wave at highand low pitch and the difference inamplitude of a wave that is quietand one that is loud. The Universityof Colorado has produced a superbsimulation that lets you see soundwaves. Adjust the frequency orvolume and you can see and hearhow the wave changes. Move thelistener around and hear what shehears students can use toinvestigate the properties of sound [AR5].
2. Sound studioIn this activity students investigateways of making their own musicalinstruments. All objects have anatural frequency or set offrequencies at which they vibratewhen struck, plucked, strummed orsomehow disturbed. The actualfrequency is dependent upon theproperties of the material the objectis made of (this affects the speed ofthe wave) and the length of thematerial (this effects thewavelength of the wave). It is thegoal of your student musicians tofind instruments that possess theability to vibrate with sets offrequencies that are musicallysounding (i.e. mathematicallyrelated by simple whole numberratios) and to vary the lengths and properties to create thedesired sounds.
Good examples include straw
MAIN ACTIVITIES
Explore interesting properties ofsound waves, such asresonance, with your more ablestudents. Help them to set upexperiments such as inducingvibrations in one of twomounted tuning forks of thesame natural frequency [AR11]and differing sized bobsmounted on sticks whichvibrate backwards and forwardsat different natural frequencies[AR12]. The operatic classic,shattering a wine glass, isdemonstrated beautifully onhigh-speed film in a video bySalford University [AR13].
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES[AR1] LONGITUDINAL SOUND WAVESTINYURL.COM/TSMM1[AR2] RECIPE FOR DANCING CORN FLOURTINYURL.COM/TSMM2[AR3] CORN FLOUR 'DANCING' TO DUBSTEPTINYURL.COM/TSMM3A AND CORN FLOURVIBRATIONS TINYURL.COM/TSMM4[AR4] CRO DIAGRAMS OF SOUND WAVESTINYURL.COM/TSMM5[AR5] PHET INTERACTIVE SIMULATION OFSOUND WAVES TINYURL.COM/TSMM55[AR6] INVENTING HOMEMADEINSTRUMENTS WITH MATH ANDMEASUREMENT TINYURL.COM/TSMM6 [AR7] TABLE OF MUSICAL NOTEFREQUENCIES AND WAVELENGTHSTINYURL.COM/TSMM7[AR8] HYDRAULOPHONE DEMONSTRATIONTINYURL.COM/TSMM8[AR9] EXPERIMENTAL MUSICALINSTRUMENTS TINYURL.COM/TSMM9[AR10] LANDFILL HARMONICTINYURL.COM/TSMM10[AR11] RESONATING TUNING FORKSTINYURL.COM/TSMM11A[AR12] IDEERS FROM BRISTOL UNIVERSITYTINYURL.COM/TSMM12[AR13] WINE GLASS SHATTERING, SALFORDUNVIERSITY TINYURL.COM/TSMM13
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INFORMATIONCORNER
STRETCH THEM FURTHER
Play students a clip of LandfillHarmonic – a group ofParaguayan students who havecreated an orchestra from trashdumped at the landfill sitewhere they live [AR10]. Inspireyour students to create andperform a short piece of musicusing the instruments theyhave created and perhaps evenperform in a school assembly.Ensure that physics is the starof the show by asking studentsto describe and explain howtheir instrument works tocreate sounds of different pitch and volume.
SUMMARY
Dr Joanna L. RhodesM.Chem, D.Phil, MRSC is ateacher of science at ShelleyCollege, Huddersfield.
ABOUT OUR EXPERT
oboes made by cutting the end ofa straw into a triangular tip andblowing hard into it. Shorteningthe straw incrementally increasesthe pitch by shortening thewavelength. Challenge students toproduce an octave of straw oboesfor your orchestra. Other ideasinclude creating a trumpet with ahosepipe and funnel or cuttingVelcro into different lengths andpulling it apart. Stretching andplucking rubber bands of differentlengths are other examples thatcan be modified to produce andinteresting instrument using icecream, margarine tubs, milkcartons and cereal packets.Blowing over milk bottle tops withdifferent volumes of water createsa superb flute effect but requires abit of practice; an alternative is tostrike the milk bottles with a spoonto give a glockenspiel-like effect.Other examples of musicalinstruments are available on PhilTulga’s website [AR6] andstudents can be as large andcreative as they like – why notmake cardboard rock guitars orping stretched elastic against awooden board? Encouragelearners to apply theirunderstanding of sound by usingthe CRO and microphone to tunetheir instruments to a musicalscale and to record thewavelength and frequency of
each note using a useful tablefound here [AR7]. iPad apps suchas ProTunerLite and Guitartunaand Cleartune Chromatic are freeor very low cost tuning metersthat use the ipad or iphonemicrophone to display thefrequency of the note played.Another amazing iPad app isSound Uncovered fromExploratorium; this app featuresincredible auditory illusions andother acoustic phenomena. Itallows students to hear with theireyes, see with their ears, makeand modify recordings, and testtheir own hearing.
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