Mrs. Henk's Third Grade Class

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Mrs. Henk's Third Grade Class

by Preeyal and Aveya

In science, we have been learning about energy. So far, we have mainly worked with sound energy.  Sounds are caused by vibrations, which are rapid back and forth movements.  We watched a tuning fork vibrate. It vibrated so much that when it was put into water, the water splattered out. We worked with sounds through solids, where we scratched a stick, sounds through water, where we used a stethoscope, and sounds through air, using a tuning fork.

In engineering, we are learning and making sounds in different ways.  We made ear harps and sound sandwiches.  The pitch, how high or low the sound is, can be changed by how long or loose the vibrating part of the object is.  If it is long and loose, it is a lower pitch, and if it is tight or short, it is a higher pitch.

A mechanical engineer from 3M came to talk with the third graders.  He talked about a lot of interesting things.  He showed us how sound travels through a spring.  First, he held both ends and then he yanked one side and stopped.  We saw the vibrations travel along the spring.  He also showed us a machine that measured hertz.  He told us that some animals are able to hear higher or lower pitches than human beings can. The unit of measurement for pitch is hertz.  Most of the students could hear up to 16,000 hertz, until they couldn’t hear anything.  He also showed us a video about human ears. We have hairs in our ears that vibrate and make the sounds that go to our brain.  If you put ear buds in your ears and listen to loud sounds, it can hurt your eardrum, or the little hairs in your ears will lie flat.  Some ear hairs will recover and some won’t.

In literacy, we have been working on nonfiction text features, main ideas, comparing and contrasting, fact and opinion, cause and effect, and summarizing.  Some students are working in groups on presentations about light and sound energy or about people who were pioneers in light and sound energy.