Wildcat Workshop @ Chester Arthur School
Grade 5
Making Waves with sound
Essential Questions
How can sound make something move?
How can we use digital tools to document and communicate about our investigations?
How can I use design thinking to create something that is useful and meaningful to others?
What does it mean to be a good digital citizen?
Key Projects
Website using Google Sites that has images, text, video, and data displays summarizing independent and whole class sound investigations
Showcase of 2 or more engineered devices per group to educate, entertain, and/or solve a problem while highlighting how sound works and cultural uses of sound
June 2022
We designed things could use to hold our phones while we play music and/or watch videos. We used Tinkercad to create our designs and our 3D printer to print them.
We chose from 1 of 4 coding challenges to practice using loops and conditionals in programming.
Week of 18 April
We explored possibilities for coding Ozobots using color patterns.
Week of 28 March
We showed off our Makey Makey + Scratch designs.
Weeks of 7, 14, & 21 March
We continued refining our Makey Makey + Scratch designs.
Weeks of 21 & 28 February
We’ve been exploring sound as engineers and scientists. We were joined via Zoom by percussionist, artist, and poet Karen Smith. She played and described percussion instruments from around the world. We’re hoping to use what we learned for our Makey Markey project designs.
We also continued prototyping and iterating on our Makey Makey designs.
Weeks of 7 & 14 February
We returned to our Makey Makey kits and began brainstorming new ideas for designs. We watched a video with examples and wrote down some of the materials shown.
We also began working with Scratch for the first time. We can use event listeners in Scratch to make a sprite do something (e.g., move up when we press the up arrow on our keyboard). We will eventually connect the Makey Makey to a Scratch story that will make music.
Week of 24 January
We updated our Google Sites with information, images, and an embedded video about the inventors of modern microphones. We learned about how to search for images that have Creative Commons licenses and add them to our Google Sites.
Example website page
Week of 17 January
We worked toward earning Digital Citizen Badges for being Intellectual Property Pros. This means we reflected on what the term intellectual property means and why it is important. We also also discussed and classified examples of intellectual property that may be protected by copyright, trademark, or patent.
We still have some learning to do about copyright in particular. This lesson was only an introduction.
We also worked earned a Digital Citizen Badges for being Screen Time Managers. This means we reflected on how we feel when we use digital devices. We focused on social media in particular and how it can sometimes make us feel as if we are missing out on exciting things that other people are doing. We also reflected on how to better balance our screen time.
Week of 10 January
We watched a video about the origin of the word algorithm. We discussed how an algorithm is a set of step-by-step rules for solving a problem or completing a process.
Then, we practiced writing detailed and specific algorithms for building Lego structures.
You could only use words and numbers, not diagrams.
We tried to use as few words and numbers as possible.
Pretty quickly, most of us realized that we could tell someone to repeat certain steps. (This is called a loop in computer science.)
We shared our algorithms with peers, who tried to build the structure using our instructions. Some of us improved our written instructions after getting feedback from a peer.
We also learned about encoding color images with binary code. We discussed how three LEDs (red, green, and blue—abbreviated as RGB) can be used to produce a lot of different colors. This involves turning some lights on and others off. Or making some brighter than others. We can control which LEDs are on and off using 1s and 0s, too!
We used the pixel widget in code.org to make different colors. We also tried to recreate some images in color using 6 bit codes, 2 bits for red, green, and blue each.
Week of 3 January
We earned a Digital Citizen Badge for being a Conscientious Digital Sharer. This means we reflected on the ways that we passively and actively add information to our digital footprint. Next, we discussed how information in our digital footprint may be used by others who have access to it. We also discussed some of the negative consequences of sharing too much personal and private information online.
We also began exploring how digital files can be compressed to make them smaller. We used the text compression widget on code.org to make replace repeated words and phrases in music lyrics with a symbol. We could then connect the symbol with the phrase in a dictionary. This is an example of lossless compression.
Weeks of 13 & 20 December
We continued coding our Dance Parties on code.org. We added event listeners in the code to control the dancers with our Makey Makeys and dough creations.
Week of 6 December
We began coding a Dance Party on code.org that we could control with our Makey Makeys. The code we wrote allowed us to set up event listeners for specific dance moves.
For Computer Science Education Week (December 6-10), we also contributed to a secret pixel message. Each student placed five Post-its based on horizontal and vertical coordinates. All digital images are made up of pixels. And some programming languages, like Javascript, use horizontal and vertical coordinates to place objects on a digital page.
We also explored how to encode images and patterns using binary code (0s and 1s) using the Pixel Widget in code.org.
Week of 29 November
We continued exploring possibilities for making music with our Makey Makey kits. We began by exploring examples of Makey Makey setups with conductive dough and began planning and testing our own designs.
Week of 15 November
We continued exploring possibilities for making music with our Makey Makey kits. After viewing a video showing how we could use conductive and nonconductive dough to create circuits, we began making our own dough. We needed to measure a number of materials, mix them, heat them on a hot plate, and knead the dough.
We also began documenting the dough making process on our Google websites.
Week of 8 November
We wrapped up our exploration of the paper plate speakers by drawing diagrams that explain how our speaker is similar to a speaker we could buy in a store. Both have very strong magnets. (We tried picking our store-bought speaker up off of a metal cabinet and realized how strong the magnet is!)
We also tried out one of the investigations a student had suggested: putting powder on a speaker to see what happens.
Later in the week we learned about circuits by setting up Makey Makeys. The kit connects to our computer. When we complete each of the six circuits, it sends an input signal to our computer. We can use the Makey Makey and our computer to make music. We're just getting started!
Weeks of 18 and 25 October; 1 November
To explore how sound works, we followed directions for making a working speaker out of paper plate and magnets. The systems we built had two magnets: a permanent neodymium magnet and an electromagnet made from a copper wire coil wrapped around the neodymium magnet. When connected to an amplifier and phone, the electromagnet turns on and off, causing the paper plate to move up and down as it interacts with the permanent magnet.
As we built the speaker, we took photos with webcams and added the photos to a new page on our personal Google Sites. We also added a description of each step on our site.
Week of 11 October
This year, we will document our investigations with sound by creating websites. This week, we began making our own websites using Google Sites. Rather than coding a website from scratch, we can use web applications like Google Sites, Drupal, or Squarespace to build websites. We created a homepage with a header, blocks of paragraph text with headings, and a page about our favorite music or musical artist.
Week of 27 September
This year, we will document our investigations with sound by creating websites. This week, we dug into how paragraphs and headings are coded using HTML (hypertext markup language) using Web Lab on code.org. HTML is basically one of the languages that developers use to tell your internet browser how to display a webpage.
Week of 20 September
We looked at some examples of insects that make sounds. To learn more, we did some research on the internet. We talked about some strategies for finding the information we were looking for. For instance, if we wanted to find more than just a video of a cricket chirping, we needed to refine our search by using additional terms. Also, we realized that when we learn something using one search, we can use that new information (often a new word) to improve our search. We practiced putting our research into a digital document.
We also began learning about how webpages are made using HTML.
Week of 13 September
After our last class, we decided that it would be easier to see the vibrations if we could see them in slow motion. We watched videos of a drum, guitar, and tuning fork in slow motion, Then, we worked together to come up with a model of how a drum works. We needed to agree on some specific aspects of the model. For instance, there's an initial force. We also noticed in the videos that the instruments all bend back further than their starting point. Another important thing: All of the vibrations stopped over time.
Week of 6 September
We observed a few different musical instruments to see how they make sound: guitar, xylophone, and tuning fork. We realized that all of them vibrate. We also noted that to make it make sound, you have to hit it. Also, the harder you hit it, the louder it sounds. This probably means it vibrates more.
Week of 30 August
We began investigating how sound can make things move.
We watched a video that showed how loud music can make glass shake on a building across a parking lot.
Then, we decided to set up a model in our own class with a speaker and plastic. We observed movement of both the speaker and the plastic.
Next, we drew what we thought was happening at the speaker, in the space between the speaker and the glass, and at the glass.
We also brainstormed other times we have seen sound make things move.
Finally, we wrote down some questions that we had about this phenomenon.
This is just the beginning! We have lots of questions about sound to investigate now.
Video from the internet
Video of our own investigation in class
Some of our initial models ... It looks like we don't quite agree on how sound works yet!
We will need to do some more investigations and revise our models.
