Science Fair

Grown-ups

Does a bigger paper cone help you hear a quiet sound from farther away?

1st–5th grade · 1 day of testing · free · ages 6 to 11 · 40 minutes a sitting

  • ✅ Nothing sharp, hot or small
What you need for the paper ear trumpets and sound project: construction paper: black, white, red, blue and yellow, a stopwatch or a kitchen timer, a tape measure, or a long ruler, masking tape, to mark lines

My hypothesis

If I change how big the paper cone is, then how far away you can still hear the ticking will ______, because ______.

You fill in the blanks. Think about what a cone's wide end could catch, and where its narrow end sends it. A guess is a good because: the test finds out.

Change, measure, keep the same

CHANGE

how big the paper cone is: No cone, Small cone, Big cone

MEASURE

how far away you can still hear the ticking, in cm

KEEP THE SAME

  • the same ticking timer in the same place
  • the same listener
  • the same quiet room

Scientists call the thing you change the independent variable and the thing you measure the dependent variable. The things you keep the same are the controls: if one of them changed too, you wouldn't know which change made the difference. Try each of the 3 levels 3 times.

What you need

  • Construction paper: black, white, red, blue and yellow: 2 sheets
  • A stopwatch or a kitchen timer: a kitchen timer that ticks, or a clock that ticks
  • A tape measure, or a long ruler
  • Masking tape, to mark lines: for the cones and the floor
  • 🩹 Tape
  • ✂️ Kid scissors

Steps

  1. Roll one sheet into a small cone and a big sheet into a big cone, and tape them.
  2. Snip the tip of each cone so it has a small hole at the narrow end.
  3. Put the ticking timer on a table at one end of a quiet room.
  4. With no cone, step back until you can't hear it, and put a tape mark at your toes.
  5. Hold the narrow end of the small cone near your ear, never inside it.
  6. Point the wide end at the timer and step back until you can't hear it.
  7. Measure each mark from the timer. Do every one three times.
  8. Test the big cone three times the same way.
  9. Draw a bar for each one. Which helped you hear from farthest away?

Every step is one you can do yourself, with a grown-up nearby. Write each number down straight away, in the table below, so nothing is lost.

Your results table

MY RESULTSPeabody 🦉 peabody.kids/science-fair

Name ______________________ Fair day ____________

Question: Does a bigger paper cone help you hear a quiet sound from farther away?

I changed: Cone   I measured: how far away you can still hear the ticking (cm)

ConeTry 1 (cm)Try 2 (cm)Try 3 (cm)Mean
No cone
Small cone
Big cone

MY GRAPH (a bar graph: cone along the bottom, cm up the side)

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

From 4th grade, add the tries for each level and divide by how many there were: that's the mean, and it goes in the last column. Then draw a bar graph, one bar for each thing you tried.

📊 Make my graph🖨 Print the whole packet (9 pages)

Why it works

A cone catches sound over its wide end and funnels it down to the narrow end, so more of it reaches your ear. Ear trumpets worked like this before hearing aids were invented, and a bigger mouth usually catches more.

Going further (7th and up): Change a second thing: point each cone straight at the timer and off to one side, and measure both.

Board layout

MY BOARD · 36 × 48 in tri-foldPeabody 🦉 peabody.kids/science-fair
  1. ❓ Question (10 × 8 in): Does a bigger paper cone help you hear a quiet sound from farther away?
  2. 💭 Hypothesis (10 × 9 in): If I change how big the paper cone is, then how far away you can still hear the ticking will ______, because ______.
  3. 🧺 Materials (10 × 12 in): 4 things: see your list.
  4. 🪜 Steps (22 × 9 in): 9 steps, three tries at each level.
  5. 📊 Results (22 × 16 in): Your table (Cone down the side, tries across) and your bar graph.
  6. ✅ Conclusion (10 × 14 in): My hypothesis was right / partly right / not right. I know because…

Materials to list: Construction paper: black, white, red, blue and yellow; A stopwatch or a kitchen timer; A tape measure, or a long ruler; Masking tape, to mark lines.

Bring photos or drawings of your test. Nothing wet, hot, powered or alive on the table.

This project at your grade

1st–3rd gradeTries: three at each level (one is fine at a first fair). The table: levels and tries, numbers or pictures. The graph: a picture, or a simple bar graph. The conclusion: what happened, in their words.
4th–6th gradeTries: three at each level. The table: units in the header and a mean column. The graph: a bar graph, or a line for a number that grows. The conclusion: right, partly or not, and the numbers that show it.

From 4th grade up, the table gets a mean column. See every project for 1st grade, or print a blank results table.

What a judge will ask

  • What did you change, and what did you measure? I changed how big the paper cone is and measured how far away you can still hear the ticking, in cm.
  • What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? I kept the same ticking timer in the same place and the same listener the same, so the only difference was how big the paper cone is.
  • How many times did you test it? 3 times at each of my 3 levels.
  • If you did it again, what would you change or test next? I'd point each cone straight at the timer and off to one side, and measure both.

Make it yours

Keep this project on this device and Peabody counts down to your fair day, with a plan for each day. Nothing is sent anywhere.

Try next

👨‍👩‍👧 For grown-ups and teachers: how much to help, the safety rules, and running a school fair. Science fair v0.16.1 · Checked .

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