Acoustical Engineering and Kwame's Sound

Dear Friends of Gefen and Tamar,

In Science this semester we are in the midst of a unit called Sound and Acoustical Engineering. One of the things that makes the unit special is that it is much more than just a science unit. Rather, the curriculum integrates science with technology, engineering, literature, and geography to offer students a comprehensive understanding not only of sound, but of how sound effects and communicates with the world in which we live.

Most recently, we did a lesson that involved reading a story called Kwame's Sound. The story is about Kwame, a young boy who lives in Ghana. Kwame's father is an Acoustical Engineer and he works with research biologists to use sound recording devices to track elephants' movements in the forest. They then represent these sounds in pictures called spectrograms, where they can measure the sounds more accurately. By using spectrograms to track the sounds the elephants make, Kwame's father and his colleagues can estimate the number of elephants living in the forest without actually seeing them.

After spending time with his father and another research biologist, Kwame decides that he could use spectograms to help him in his own life. He and his cousin are planning to play drums together at an upcoming new year's celebration but they live too faraway from one another to practice together in advance. Kwame creates a spectrogram to represent a drum beat he has written and mails it to his cousin. Then the two boys practice on their own in the days leading up to their performance. On the day of the performance the boys are able to play the same rhythm together and be in sync with one another without having practiced together a single time before!

The purpose of this story is to introduce students to the concept of sounds that we can see or feel. Students learned many vocabulary words and concepts like the Engineering Design Process, which is a process that engineers use to design technologies. Here are some photographs of the students completing worksheets on the EDP (Engineering Design Process) and relevant vocabulary.

Next class we will do some hands-on exploration that involves learning what it means to "dampen" sound. In the meantime, ask your Gefen and Tamar students about the Engineering Design Process. They should be able to outline it for you succinctly.

Best,
Hamorah Eliza