St. Peter's Primary Bray Blog

Ms. Mitchell’s class studied the topic of Sound for the Discover Science Project;                                                                               read on to find out what we discovered!

Exploring what we know and thinking aloud
First we had a quick” think, pair, share” about what we think of when we hear the word “Sound”.

Next we shared our thoughts and wrote them on the board in a thought shower, some were very interesting!
Afterwards we decided to start thinking about what sound actually is?

We had some super thoughts!
Nathan k “ I think it’s like a knock on the table”.
Adam “ It’s like a noise that you hear”.
Nathan O’B “ I think it’s like a whistle”.
Jordan “ I think it’s like a bang or a clap”.
Lorcan “ I think it’s like an echo”.
Ryan “It’s something you hear”.
Ben “ It goes into your ear”.
Johnny “ It’s loud or quiet and you hear it”.
Some of us were getting a little confused about what sound is and what is a sound so Ms.Mitchell asked us to close our eyes and put our closed fingers across our throats and say “AAAAHHHH”. It sounded very funny! Next Ms. Mitchell asks us to tell our partner what we felt…Johnny was the first to shout out “ A vibration!”. We all had a “eureka” moment!
Next we played some sound games on the bbc.co.uk/skills website to learn more about sound. We learned that when something makes a vibration it makes a sound and the noise from the vibration travels to our ear.
We also discovered that sound needs a medium to travel through; it can travel through a solid, liquid or gas.
We decided to investigate into this more. Lorcan and Ryan knew that if someone knocked on our door, that sound travelled through the air to get to our ears. Nathan O’B knew that if you screamed or shouted under water, that sound would travel through the water and into our ears. We couldn’t decide if sound would travel through a solid or not so we chose that as our investigation.

The Investigation
We teamed up into three’s, each group had scissors, string, two plastic cups, two foam cups and two tin cans. Each team member had to predict which cup would allow or help the sound to travel more clearly?

Here are our predictions:
Plastic – Adam and Nathan O’B
Foam – Ms Mitchell & Ms. Flanagan
Tin – Lorcan, Ryan, Ben, Johnny, Jordan, Nathan K, Arturas
We took turns within our groups to make sure everyone had a turn on each “telephone” with each person.
Adam reminded us all to make sure that string was as tight and straight as possible, otherwise the sound wouldn’t travel well enough– well done Adam!

During the investigation Lorcan and Johnny noticed they could hear Mr. Foley speaking next door, once we opened our door we could hear him even clearer! The boys decided to test this out themselves; Johnny went outside and Lorcan stayed inside and Jordan made sure the string was straight and tight. Next, Jordan closed the door. We all waited in silence to see if we could hear Johnny…and we did!

Ben commented that “Johnny sounded like he was down a cave “.
Lorcan added that “ It sounded like an echo “.
Finally we all shared our results and concluded that sound could travel through a solid and that the tin can was the best medium.
Nathan K told us that it was the thickest and heaviest of all and that could possibly be why!
We also discussed how and why we could more clearly through the door. Jordan, Ben and Adam concluded that the door was made of wood, which is a solid.
Lorcan and Ryan told us that the echo sound we heard through the door reminded them of someone shouting with their hands cupped over their mouth! Some very interesting conclusions boys!

Thanks to Ryan Kennedy for making the animoto video!