Gretchen Brinza
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Acoustical Engineering

Each and every day, every one of us interacts with different sounds.  These sounds can serve as a way to communicate, to inform, or to annoy us!  Acoustical engineers help develop technologies that are focused on sound and are sound experts.  They know about pitch and volume and how to change factors that affect these properties. Whether they work to amplify sound or to dampen it, their work is very important to us!

Home

4.  What Causes Sound?

1/30/2014

 
Picture
While it has been easy to discriminate sounds, third graders are now trying to uncover what actually causes sound.  With a few "instruments," third graders are gathering evidence for what causes sound and also what causes the sounds to be so different from each other!

Did they see something happen when the struck the tuning fork?  Did they feel something?  What about with the long gong made of string, a cup, and a metal hanger?  Did they see or feel something when they heard the pencil strike the hanger?  

3.  Sound Codes!

1/21/2014

 
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Every sound we hear can be discriminated against another sound. For example, the sound a washer makes sounds quite differently than the sound a popsicle stick makes.

Knowing that sound can be used to communicate, third graders are using sound to "tell" a code.  Using their drop chambers and some everyday objects, they are trying to have their friends guess their secret message.  Their sound code is one example of a code.  We discussed how braille, sign language, and music are special codes, too!

2.  Sound Discrimination!

1/13/2014

 
How can you tell sounds apart from one another?  Do they all sound the same?  Or are you able to hear the differences?

Acoustical engineers must be able to discriminate sounds apart from one another, especially as we want to be able to hear specific sounds and not others.  Third graders began their sound unit trying to discriminate sounds playing the Drop Challenge!  They had to try to match the sounds their friends made from dropping everyday objects.  For example, when you drop an eraser and a washer, they make very distinguishable sounds!  

1.  Meet Kwame!

1/5/2014

 
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Kwame is a young boy living in Ghana.  Even though Kwame is blind, he doesn't let this get in his way of performing in his village's music festival.  Determined to learn about sound, Kwame seeks the help of an acoustical engineer.

Learning about how to discriminate different sounds, Kwame becomes an acoustical engineer himself!

Key Vocabulary:  acoustical engineer, sound, energy, pitch, frequency, volume, amplitude, source, receiver, vibration, spectrogram, property, tension, medium, amplify, and damp.  

    Mrs. Brinza

    What sounds have you heard today?

    What sounds make you happy?  Annoy you?

    Archives

    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014

    Useful Links
    • Sound Simulation
    • Sound and Hearing
    • The Doppler Train
    • Changing Sounds
    • Factors that Affect Pitch


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