Today, room 41 went to the wharekai to be taught about decibels. Decibels are the measurement of sound. The higher the sound level the worse it is for you. Toni, the instructor told us about the safe and dangerous levels of sound.
She had us doing some experiments like hitting a tuning fork and then feeling and hearing the vibrations and she showed us how the hair in our ears can bend and become useless. She also showed us that they can not become straight, so that means that they can not be repaired. In the first experiment we used a tuning fork and hit the floor with it, then we moved it to a safe distance away from our ear and listened to the vibrations. The next one still involved the toner, but this time when we hit it, we touched it with our hand so that we can feel the vibration. After that we used the toner and a ping pong ball. When we touched the toner to the ball, it started to bounce. This is because it created energy which then moved the ball. We did a bit more with the toner, such as hitting the toner 5 times then comparing the movement. Another experiment involved pipe cleaners. She got some volunteers and gave them a bundle of pipe cleaners. She then told them to hit the pipe cleaners semi soft. This was the show the safe level of sound, which is 85 db. Then she went beyond that and went to a heavy metal concert level which is 150 db. The pipe cleaners bent and were not able to straighten because of the severity of the bend.
Toni also explained what things were safe and what were dangerous. Here are te examples she used:
1. Washing machine.
2. Power tools.
3. Fireworks.
4. Rock/heavy metal concerts.
Once all of this was done we had a conversation about ways to protect our hearing. Here are the ways to protect your hearing:
1.Walk away.
2.Turn it down.
3.Use protection e.g use ear muffs.
One thing that I learnt was that sound waves create energy.
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