🔇 Muffling a sound: the whole packet

🔇 Muffling a sound · 2nd–7th grade · 1 day of testing · free · 45 minutes a sitting

My days, if the fair is 14 days away

Count back from your fair day and write in each date. Fewer days than this? The jobs share days, in this order; nothing is skipped.

Dates from my teacher

• My question is due
• Testing starts
• My results table and graph are due
• My board is due

In this packet

1. 🗓️ My project plan
2. 💭 My hypothesis
3. 🧺 Change, measure, keep the same
4. 🪜 My steps
5. 📊 My results
6. 📓 My logbook
7. ✅ My conclusion
8. ✂️ Board titles to cut out
9. 🏅 The judge's questions and my certificate

If I change what the timer is wrapped in, then how far away you can still hear it will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

4 levels × 3 tries at each = 12 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• ⏱️ A stopwatch or a kitchen timer: a kitchen timer that ticks, or a clock that ticks
• 📦 A shoebox
• 🧻 Paper towels
• 🧦 Something wool: a sock, a hat or a sweater: a wool sock
• 🫧 Bubble wrap
• 📏 A tape measure, or a long ruler
• 🩹 Masking tape, to mark lines: for marks on the floor
• 🩹 Tape

Be safe: ✅ Nothing sharp, hot or small

1. Start the timer ticking, put it in the shoebox with nothing round it, and close the lid.
2. Stand right next to the box. You should hear the ticking.
3. Take one step back at a time and listen with your eyes shut.
4. Stop when you can't hear it any more, and put a tape mark at your toes.
5. Measure from the box to the mark, and do it two more times.
6. Wrap the timer in paper towels, put it back in the box and test it three times.
7. Test it three times in the sock, and three times in bubble wrap.
8. Draw a bar for each wrap. The shortest bar muffled the sound best.

Write each number in your results table the moment you measure it.

I changed: Wrap   I measured: how far away you can still hear it (cm)

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

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

Write something every day you work on it, even the days you only gather things. More days? The three-page logbook prints from peabody.kids/science-fair/templates/logbook.

My hypothesis was ☐ right ☐ partly right ☐ not right.

I know because my numbers show:

What surprised me, or what might have gone wrong (7th and up):

Next time I would test:

Idea: Change a second thing: use one, two and three layers of the best wrap, and see how much each layer adds.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: which wrap muffles the sound of a ticking timer best?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing what the timer is wrapped in would change how far away you can still hear it, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed what the timer is wrapped in (Nothing, Paper towels, A wool sock, Bubble wrap) and measured how far away you can still hear it in cm.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same ticking timer in the same shoebox and the same listener the same, so only what the timer is wrapped in was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 4 levels, and I found the middle number.
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers. Say something like: Look at my table: Nothing and Bubble wrap gave different numbers, and here's the pattern.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know? Say something like: My numbers show whether I was right, partly right or not, and I can show you where.
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you? Say something like: One try was odd, so I did it again and wrote it in my logbook.
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next? Say something like: I'd change a second thing: use one, two and three layers of the best wrap, and see how much each layer adds.