Science - Sound

In our science lessons this half term, we have started to learn about sound and how we hear sounds. We were very excited to welcome Dr Fox into Hedgehog class to help us with our learning through practical investigations.

We saw how sound waves move from a source to our ear by using a slinky toy and we saw colourful representations of the tiny hairs inside our ears. We then investigated which materials were best to amplify the sound from mini music boxes. On their own, the music boxes make a very quiet sound, but when placed on a wooden, metal, plastic or glass surface the sound was amplified and much louder. We found that a wooden box was the best at amplifying the sound and it was even louder if we put our ear inside the box!

Finally, we watched a demonstration with a Chladni Plate. The flat plat was mounted above a speaker and had a layer of sand on top. Sounds with different frequencies from the speaker caused different vibrations which we could see as the sand on top of the plate was moved int different patterns.