BFSU LESSON C 2 - SOUND, VIBRATIONS AND ENERGY

Our BFSU lesson this week was on sound, vibrations and energy.

The objectives were:

1. Understand and use the following words in their proper context, vibrations, tone, pitch, frequency and amplitude.
2. Demonstrate and tell how sound and vibrations are related.
3. Analyse musical instruments and voice in terms of producing vibrations.
4. Describe  how we make sound with our voices.
5. Demonstrate and tell how pitch depends on frequency of vibrations.
6. Model how sound is transmitted.
7. Describe how the ear picks up vibrations and translates them into hearing.

For part 1 we experimented with larger and smaller elastic bands to produce a tone and how that tone is affected by the size as well as the tension of the band.  Smaller band and more tension on the band the higher the pitch.     We also experimented with a little guitar to illustrate this lesson as well as spoke about the larynx and how the vocal cords act in the same way as the rubber bands to produce different pitches.   We have covered this in Human anatomy with Apologia already so the children knew quite a lot about the larynx as well as the eardrum.

 

To illustrate the transmission of sound we rolled a marble towards three other stationary marbles alone a grooved surface to show the transfer of movement energy from the rolling marble to the next marble and then the next and now they all remain stationary after knocking into one another except for the last one, which rolls on. 

 

This was used to illustrate that the air particles behave in the same way. "Bumping" into each other all the way up to the eardrum, then transferring the vibrations to the eardrum, and  therefore the sound.

 

This exercise in movement energy required the background of the previous lesson on the various energies, thereby building on the knowledge.

 

 

BFSU - LESSON C1 - CONCEPTS OF ENERGY I

Today we studied BFSU Lesson C1 - Concepts of Energy I - Making things go.

The objectives where:-

1. Recognise and describe how things do not go, work, move, or change by themselves.  Something additional is required.
2. In any given situation, identify the "something additional" as: heat, electricity, lighr, or movement.  Which are knows as "forms of energy"
3. Describe that many things (gas, wood, batteries, and a food) are not energy by themselves, but contain stored energy that may be released.
4. Recognise and tell how various devices (light bulbs and motors) change one form of energy to another.
5. Recognise that energy is not created from nothing. It must always come from another source.
6. Recognise and state how energy is never changed into solid, liquid, or gas and visa versa.

We split these objectives into three parts, forms of energy and what they do, storage and release of energy and energy changing from one form to another.

I made four energy cards and a number of action cards and asked the children to match the energy cards to the various action cards as in the below pic.

 



Obviously those with a physics background will realise that we are taking some liberties in the definitions but it is simply to convey the concept, without getting bogged down in detail.   Once the concept is understood teaching the definitions is simple.

Our discussions lead us on a walk around the house to view where our electricity enters and the fuse box which lead us to a discussion on safety.  We also had a long discussion on fridges and how energy is involved in the freezing process.  Food was another topic that came up, and the cycle of light energy in photosynthesis creating food for plants that then get eaten by us to release energy. 

Our accompanying book Charging about - the story of electricity by Jacqui Bailey was perfect to introduce how electricity is created and we ended off viewing a youtube clip on a hydro-electric power station and marvelling at how loud the rushing water was!

BFSU SUNDAYS

 

 

This Sunday we studied Lesson D1 - Gravity in BFSU.  The three topics we discussed were The concept of Gravity, Horizontal and Vertical and gravity - the orbits of heavenly bodies and satellites. 

 

To explain horizontal and vertical we made a plumb bob for the vertical and used a spirit level for the horizontal. 

 

 

Princess Perfects' teddy got a free ride around the room to illustrate the orbiting of heavenly bodies and satellites in relation to gravity and centrifugal force, which apparently the boys knew loads about from watching a backyard science episode.

 

 

We finished off with a page from The science and history project book.  Todays experiment was What is humidity?

 

Dad made an awesome hygrometer to measure humidity.  We sprayed the paper towel with a spray bottle filled with water and the "needle" flew into the air!

 

 

 

To experience and discuss transpiration we tied a plastic sleeve around a plant.

 

It didn't work too well as our cat decided to investigate and knocked the sleeve off whilst we were inside working on the hygrometer!

 

 

BFSU

On Sundays, as a family, we always do a lesson from Building foundations of Scientific Understanding by Dr Nebel.   I absolutely love BFSU!  It is aimed at a K-2 audience but I am starting this with all three munchkins as I think it will fill any gaps they may have in their scientific understanding. 

We are following a similar flowchart to what is in the book and so far we have completed lessons A/B1 - A4.  I am busy creating a poster to illustrate what we have learnt so far and will publish that as soon as I am done.

Todays lesson is Lesson B2 - Distinguishing Living/biological, Natural Non-living and Human-made things.  Off we went into the garden to find specimens to classify.

Whilst I thought it would be pretty straight forward, it wasn't!!!  It took me a good few minutes to get my head around the living/biological label as it wasn't as straight forward!!

In our living/biological category we had a flower, tree bark, wood, a leaf, a shell and a few critters - a snail (trying to make a get-a-way!) a worm and an ant.

The natural non-living items are rocks, soil, stones and clay.

 

 

Our human-made items where a bit of pasta, an ice timer, a wooden knight (chess) a bit of lino and a piece of old pottery.

 

The objectives for this lesson where:-

 

• Correctly assign an item to one of the three categories, Living or biological, Natural nonliving and human made.
• Recognise, name, and describe key attributes that enable the above distinctions.
• How we make seperations, ie Orientation, Symmetry, Tenuous quality, etc
• Recognise and use the following words in their proper context : Biological, resources, raw materials and conservation.

 

The previous lessons we did on BFSU are:-

 

Lesson A/B1 - Organising things into categories

Lesson A2 - Solids, Liquids and Gases.

Lesson A3 - Air as a substance

Lesson A4 - Matter I: Its particulate nature

 

A little humour :- When we where studying Lesson A/B1, organising things into categories, I gave smarty pants and princess perfect a task in the local library to illustrate that they understood the lesson.  I asked them to locate a book "Secret seven Well done by Enid Blyton" and bring it back to me.  Smarty Pants ran off to find a computer to look up the reference and Princess Perfect ran off to near the front of the library. I followed at a distance and overheard her asking the librarian, "Um excuse me ma'am could you possibly tell me where the secret seven aisle would be in the library."  Ha,ha, definetly thinking outside the square!