Summary Listen to different frequencies and sounds through different materials and compare with how other animals hear. Play a game to show how it is hard for whales to communicate with the noise pollution in the ocean. Science content Biology: Features, Adaptations of Living Things (K, 1, 3, 7) Biology: Sensing, Organ Systems (4, 5, 6) Physics: Light and Sound (1) Activities in this lesson Sound frequency detection Sound through string Hearing through our bones Noise pollution game Sound vibration model Resource Whale song Procedure Do a selection of the activities. Sound frequency detection to appreciate how different humans can hear different frequencies, and how animals hear quite different ranges from humans. Sound through string to appreciate how sounds changes as it travels through different materials, and how some animals hear through the water or through the ground. Hearing through our bones to appreciate how sound can travel through our bones, as it does in snakes and other animals that hear through the ground. Listen to whale sounds. These sounds travel through water for hundreds of kilometers. Whales hear through their throat, which passes the sound to their inner ear. Whales comminucate across 100s of km of ocean. With more and more human activity in the ocean it is getting harder for them. Play the noise pollution game. Optional:Sound vibration model to understand how sound travels as a wave of vibrations. Sing a song, with accompanying ukelele or other instrument. Notes With young students added making musical instruments as part of this lesson: saxophone and a sound shaker from beads/dried beans/rice in a recycled water bottle. Grades taught Gr K Gr 1 Gr 2 Gr 3
