Sounds that Accentuate Effects
Using balls, a ramp, and a drum, the teacher asks the children to figure out how to increase the number of bounces the balls make on the drum. The drum accentuates what happens on different rolls of the ball through a more visible bounce and an audible beat. The teacher challenges the children to produce three sounds by rolling only one ball. Note that the children repeatedly release the ball near the top of the ramp. The children assume that the farther they are from the drum, the more sounds they will produce. Typically, the more one does, the greater the effect. However, this is an inverse relation. The shorter the distance from the drum, the more drumbeats produced. This concept is a bit counter-intuitive and initially deters the children from releasing the ball at the bottom of the ramp. In what ways might you redesign this setup so that the children’s desire to make more sounds is motivated by the setup rather than by the teacher? What would you add to this design the next day? Length of video: 4 minutes 33 seconds Keywords: Fours, Children-Teacher, Sound, Cause/Effect, Ramps, Drum, Teaching