What makes noise

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Noise levels Noise Average decibels dB Leaves rustling, soft music, whisper 30 Average home noise 40 Normal conversation, background music 60 Office noise, inside car at 60 mph 70 Vacuum cleaner, average radio 75 Heavy traffic, window air conditioner, noisy restaurant, power lawn mower 80—89 sounds above 85 dB are harmful Subway, shouted conversation 90—95 Boom box, ATV, motorcycle 96— School dance — Chainsaw, leaf blower, snowmobile — Sports crowd, rock concert, loud symphony — Stock car races Gun shot, siren at feet As loudness increases, the amount of time you can hear the sound before damage occurs decreases.

Preventing damage to your hearing An easy way to become aware of potentially harmful noise is to pay attention to warning signs that a sound might be damaging to your hearing. A sound may be harmful if: You have difficulty talking or hearing others talk over the sound.

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Phillips-Silver, J. Hearing what the body feels: auditory encoding of rhythmic movement. Cognition , — Show your partner what you dropped. Put the object back in the bag, pick a plastic object from the bag and repeat the sequence.

Put the plastic object back in the bag, pick a wooden object from it then repeat the sequence. Put the wooden object back in the bag, randomly pick another object from it, repeat the sequence. Do this a few times. Do you see a pattern in what your partner can identify? Is it easy to know what you dropped? Does he or she frequently pick an object made of the same material, the same shape or the same weight? Why do you think this is the case? Switch roles. Now your partner will drop objects and you will guess what it is.

Do you think it will be easier for you to identify the objects because you just heard the sounds these objects make when crashing onto the ground? Perform the tests. Do you see a pattern in what you can identify? Is it easy to tell what was dropped?

Do you frequently pick an object made of the same material, the same shape or the same weight? Why do you think you can or cannot do this? Do you think the results of these tests would have been different if you had dropped objects on a carpeted floor instead?

Move to an area covered with carpet and try the same tests. Can you or your partner distinguish what fell just by hearing the crash? If not, can you distinguish the material, the shape or the weight of the falling object? Why is this so? Extra: What noise does a soft object such as a scarf make when landing on the ground? Extra: Investigate if you can distinguish between heavy and light objects made of the same material crashing onto a hard floor—or between hollow and filled objects made of the same material.

Extra : Can you find words to describe the different sounds you produced in this activity? Observations and results You and your partner could probably identify what the falling object was made of wood, metal or plastic but it was probably harder to guess what the object was exactly. More to explore Ring on the Resonance!

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