The Sense Organs Lesson Plan Ideas Using Phenomenological Apparatus

What is Phenomenology?

The name is derived from the Greek word phenomenon which is any occurrence that is observable.

The Sense Organs – Lesson Plan Ideas using Phenomenological Apparatus

The Human Ear
HEARING:
Answer the following questions:
1. Why do my ears pop in an airplane?
2. What is sound?
3. How do I hear things?
4. Can I hear things when I'm asleep?
5. How do hearing impaired people communicate?
6. How much can animals hear?

Objectives

1) The student will develop a better understanding of the human ear.

2) The various parts of the ear will be demonstrated using phenomenological apparatus.

Equipment and Materials

Model of the human ear Clear rubber tubing

Funnels Food coloring

Balloons Salt

Rubber bands Rope

Hanger Tape recording of various sounds

Nylon Straws (Optional)

Shell Slinky (optional)

Recommended Strategies

Begin the lesson by a quick review of the human senses. Display the model of the human ear and break it down into its various components.

Using a rope (or a slinky) demonstrate the motion of sound waves as they enter into the ear.
This may be done by asking two students to volunteer to hold the end of the rope.
Let them shake the rope to create a wave-like effect.
Use this demonstration to start a brief discussion on the physical properties of a wave (ie. crest, trough, frequency & wavelength).

The next step is to explain the function of the eardrum.

This is accomplished by using a funnel apparatus.

Place a balloon over the large end of the funnel (held taut by using a rubber band).
On the small end of the funnel,attach a piece of clear rubber tubing or straws may be attached to the tubing for hygiene purposes.
Place grains of salt on the top of the balloon.
Into the rubber tubing, make high and low pitched sounds. This demonstrates the vibration of the eardrum by a range of frequencies.
The semicircular canals may be shown by moulding clear rubber tubing into a circle and filling it approximately half way with colored water.
By moving the tubing around the students can be shown the way the semicircular canals are able to balance.

Display a shell to show the shape of the cochlea.

A clothes’ hanger can be moulded into a circle and covered with a piece of plastic to demonstrate the oval window.

The rubber tubing may then be used again to represent the auditory nerve which leads to the brain.

At the end of the demonstration/explanation of the parts of the ear, a tape of common sounds can be played.

The students can be asked to use their listening abilities to determine the cause of the sounds that are on the recording.

HEARING
Materials Needed:
Metal spoon, wire hanger. 2 feet of kite string, ruler.

Strategy:
1. Tie the handle of the spoon or hanger to the centre of the string.
2. Wrap the ends of the string around both fingers. Be sure that both strings are of the same length.
3. Place the tip of your index finger in each ear.
4. Lean over so that the spoon or hanger hangs freely and is able to tap against the side of the table.
Results:
It will sound like a church bell because the metal in the spoon starts to vibrate when struck. These vibrations are transmitted through the string to the ears.
Objects must vibrate to produce a sound.

Sound and Hearing

Objectives:

To demonstrate that sound travels.
To explore how sound is reflected, amplified and recorded.
To investigate the physical components of the ear and the way it works.
This lesson is designed for 6th to 9th Grade classes.
Materials Needed:
one cookie box or cake tin
rubber bands
uncooked rice
scissors
sauce pan or baking tray and wooden spoon
plastic wrap or balloons
cardboard tubes
1 or 2 candles
modelling clay
1 tape recorder and microphone
flashlight
index cards or pieces of smooth posterboard
alarm clock or softly ticking metronome
blindfold
a blank cassette tape
2 funnels
1 yard of flexible plastic tubing
Strategy:
Sound as waves

Activity 1:

Stretch the plastic wrap or balloon over the cookie tin.
Secure with rubber band(s) and sprinkle a few grains of uncooked rice over the plastic.
Hold the baking tray over the can, tap the tray with the wooden spoon. You can observe that the rice moves and jumps over the plastic membrane.

This activity shows that sound travels in waves and reaches our ear drum or tympani much in the same way as it vibrates the plastic over the cookie tin.

Activity 2:

Stretch a piece of plastic wrap or balloon over both ends of a cardboard tube.
Secure with rubber band(s).
Make a little hole in the plastic at one end of the tube only.
With the clay, build a short stand that has the same height as the candle.
Lay the tube over the stand, with the pierced end pointed end towards the candle, and just a few inches away from it.
Tap the other end with your finger. The vibrations blow out the candle.

This activity shows how the vibrations made by tapping the drumhead move down the cardboard tube and push the air out through the little hole at the opposite end, much like they travel down our ears. The pitch or tone of sound waves is measured in Hertz.

Waves: direction and reflection.

Activity3:

This is a game for the whole class room to test whose ears has the best sense of direction:

Let the class sit down in a circle.
Ask one student to volunteer to wear a blindfold and sit in the middle.
The other players must stay quiet while a designated student makes a gentle noise, such as clicking his/her fingers.
The blindfolded student must point in the direction of the noise.
Different players can take a turn at being blindfolded.

Activity 4:

Use modelling clay to secure 4 equal pieces of cardboard tube in an horizontal manner. They must form a zigzag pattern with an angle of about 90o between each tube.
Without changing the angle, place a square of posterboard facing the adjoining end of the first and second tubes, another square of posterboard facing the ends of the second and third tubes, and a third piece of posterboard facing the ends of the third and fourth tubes.
Place a microphone hooked to a tape recorder at one end of this contraption.
Set a ticking metronome or alarm clock at the opposite end, but away from the opening of the first tube. The tape recorder will record nothing or a very faint sound.
Now, place the metronome right at the opening of the first tube. The resulting recording should be quite clear.

Different experiments can be done:

change the directions of the tubes and determine which direction gives off the clearest sound
replace the smooth cardboard with reflector cards of different material or egg cartons.

This activity demonstrates that sound waves in air will bounce off a flat, solid surface, like a ball bouncing off a wall. If, however, the sound waves are bounced off a surface that is soft or bumpy, the waves will break up or fade away. Volume is measured in decibels.

Amplifying and recording sound.

Activity 5:Making a stethoscope.

Take a piece of plastic tubing that fits tightly over the narrow ends of 2 funnels.
Attach a funnel to each end.
Ask a student to put one funnel over his/her chest and another student to put the other funnel, at the other end over his/her ears. He/she should be able to hear the other student's heartbeat. This activity demonstrates how some devices can amplify sound.

The shape of a cone is used to amplify sounds whether receiving them (stethoscope), or sending them (megaphone).

Activity 6:

Students,depending on their numbers, stand in a row or two and face a microphone that is hooked to a tape recorder.
They sing a song in chorus into the microphone.
The tape will strongly pick up the voice nearest to the microphone drowning out the rest.
Now, tie the microphone to the handle of an open umbrella. Place the umbrella and microphonefacing the students who continue to stand in the same placeand record the voices.
Now, play the tape back. The different voices sound far clearer than it did in the first recording.
The same experiment can be done recording birds outside.

This activity shows students how the umbrella's shape collects the sound waves and reflects it back to the microphone.

A model that demonstrates how the ear works

Activity 7:

Stretch a plastic wrap over one end of a tube and secure with a rubber band.
Roll another sheet of paper to make a cone and insert the smaller end into the other end of the tube.
Place an index card vertically very near the end of the tube with the plastic wrap and secure it with modelling clay.
Shine the flashlight on the plastic wrap so that the light is reflected onto the card.
Then shout or sing loudly into the cone.

Results: The reflected light should flicker.

The cone represents the outer ear (pinnea), the tube is the ear canal and the wrap represents the ear drum (tympanic membrane). When sounds are captured by the outer ear and travel down the ear canal, the eardrum vibrates.

Summing up

Sum up all the activities by mapping the learnings to the structure and functioning of the ear.

Three Story Intellect: Three levelled model of intellect.

Gathering – requires you to find the facts, to acquire knowledge and to understand the material.

Processing – requires you to manipulate the information, to try to make connections to prior knowledge and previous experience and/or develop concepts. To make sense of things.

Applying – to use the ideas you have gained in to solve problems or make decisions. Apply your knowledge and understanding to new situations.

How Sound is Made:

Activity 8:

Provide the students this information.

When something vibrates, it moves back and forth.
As the object vibrates, it pushes the air molecules next to it closer together, in patterns corresponding to the movements of the object.
These patterns of compressed air molecules bump into the ones next to them, passing on the pattern.
In this way the original pattern of vibrations is sent through the air, as molecules continue to bump into their neighbours.

Because the vibrations must push against something to send the pattern onwards, sound vibrations must travel through something in order to be heard.

Sound will travel through air, and even faster through liquids and solids (where the particles are closer together).

However, sound cannot travel where there are no particles ... so sound cannot travel in a vacuum. There are no sounds in outer space, or on the moon!

Sound waves are longitudinal waves because particles of the substance through which the sound passes, vibrate in the same direction as the direction in which the sound moves.

Ask students to map the information of the parts of the ear and how sound is heard.

Conclude by providing the following information:

How Sound is Heard:


The pattern of compressed air molecules eventually bumps into the air molecules inside your ear, next to your eardrum.

When these in turn bump into the eardrum itself, they cause it to vibrate with the same pattern.

The sound pattern that was originally caused by a vibrating object has now made its way into your head.

Let's look at what happens next!

Your eardrum is vibrating with the same frequency as the original sound.

This vibration pattern is sent into the middle ear, where it is passed on by three small bones called the malleus, incus, and stapes. (You may be more familiar with them as the 'hammer', 'anvil', and 'stirrup').

These bones act as levers, magnifying the sound energy up to 15 times.

The stirrup bone (stapes)

It sendssound pulses through a window in the vestibule, the upper region of the cochlea.
This snail-shaped organ in the inner ear contains fluid, and its inner surface is lined with over 20,000 hair-like nerve cells.
Each hair is sensitive to particular frequencies of sound.
As the energy pulses pass through the fluid and past the hair, they vibrate with their particular individual frequency.
They then send an electrical pulse along the auditory nerve, to the brain.
The brain recognizes these electrical signals as sound.

Other Parts of the Ear:

The middle ear is a cavity which is filled with air, and is connected by the Eustachian tube to the throat.

This connection allows you to equalize the pressure in various parts of the ear.

When this tube becomes clogged (when you have a cold), the ear cavity is unable to equalize the pressure; this often leads to earaches.

The semicircular canals, like the cochlea, are also filled with a water-like fluid.

This fluid, as it sloshes back and forth across nerve cells inside the semicircular canals, acts like an accelerometer
It helps you keep track of how your body is moving, and helps you maintain your balance.

Look here for the video that helps you create your own experiments or understand sound and the ear better

The Tongue...A Sense of Taste

Objectives:

Students will be able to identify the four taste sensations: salty, sweet, sour and bitter.
Students will be able to recognize the papillae or receptors on the tongue.
Students will be able to locate and label the different taste sense organs on the tongue.
Materials needed:
This list is for a class of thirty Grade 1 students:
1 cup of sugar 4 sticks or cotton swabs per student
1 cup of coffee 4 small cups per student
1 cup of salt 30 small hand mirrors
2 lemons 30 paper plates
15 stalks of celery 1 quart of lemon water
30 tongue diagrams 1 quart of sweet water
30 data tables 1 quart of salty water
1 quart of water-diluted coffee

Strategy:

Activity 1:

Give each student a paper plate divided into five sections.

On the plate place the following items: a pinch of salt, a lemon wedge, a dash of sugar and a dash of coffee.
Let the students taste and identify each item as being either salty, sour, sweet or bitter.

Activity 2:

Distribute bite size pieces of celery and ask the students to chew it thoroughly. (This will cleanse the mouth.)
Distribute a mirror to each student. Ask them to look at their tongue. Help them to identify the papillae (receptors) on the tongue.
Give each student a data table, four small cups, a piece of celery and four sticks or cotton swabs.
Pour 20 millilitres of the salty water in a cup, 20 millilitres of sweet water in another cup and so on, until each student has a sample of each solution.
Label the cups: A B C D or 1 2 3 4.
Ask each student to dip one stick in solution A, touch the four locations on the tongue as shown on the diagram on the chalkboard. The student will then record his/her sensation at each location as salty, sour, sweet or bitter on a Data Table.
The student can cleanse his/her mouth using the celery.
This activity should be repeated for each solution.

Distribute a diagram of the tongue to each student and ask them to label the areas of the tongue where the taste sensation is the greatest.

Covering the body—The Biggest organ in the human body

Objective:

The student will be able to describe the four functions of the skin.

Apparatus/Materials Needed:

1. Microprojector (optional) 8. Construction paper

2. Microscopes (if available) 9. Toothpicks

3. Overhead projector 10. Plastic gloves

4. Skin slide 11. Paper cups

5. Model of the skin 12. Water

6. Transparency of the skin 13. Pepper

7. Crayons

Introduction:

The skin is an organ consisting of tissues structurally joined

together to perform specific activities or functions.

The four mainfunctions of the skin are:

(1)Protection: The skin covers the body and providesa physical barrier that protects underlying tissues from physicalabrasion, bacterial invasion, dehydration and ultraviolet radiation.

(2)Maintenance of body temperature: The production of perspirationby sweat glands helps to lower body temperature back to normal.

(3) Excretion: Not only does perspiration assume a role in helping to maintain normal body temperature, it also assists in excreting small