🥁 Salt drum and sound: the whole packet

🥁 Salt drum and sound · 2nd–6th grade · 1 day of testing · free · 40 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 you bang with the spoon, then how far away it can be and still make the salt jump will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

3 levels × 3 tries at each = 9 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 🥣 A big bowl: 1, for the drum
• 🎞️ Clear plastic wrap: a piece bigger than the bowl
• ➰ Rubber bands: 1 big one
• 🧂 Salt: a pinch
• 🍽️ A baking tray or big plate: a metal baking tray
• 📦 A shoebox
• 📚 Some books: 1 hardback
• 🥄 A spoon: a wooden spoon
• 📏 A tape measure, or a long ruler

Be safe: 🧽 A bit messy

1. Stretch plastic wrap tight over the bowl and hold it on with the rubber band.
2. Sprinkle a pinch of salt in the middle of the drum.
3. Hold the baking tray right next to the drum and bang it once with the spoon.
4. Watch the salt. Did it jump? Never bang it next to anyone's ears.
5. Step back 20 cm and bang it again. Keep stepping back until the salt stops jumping.
6. Measure how far the tray was at the last bang that made the salt jump.
7. Do it two more times with the tray, putting the salt back in the middle each time.
8. Test the shoebox three times and the book three times, with the same bang.
9. Draw a bar for each one. Which sound moved the salt from farthest away?

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

I changed: What I banged   I measured: how far away it can be and still make the salt jump (cm)

MY GRAPH (a bar graph: what i banged 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: bang each one softly and hard, and measure all six.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: which sound makes salt dance on a drum from the farthest away?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing what you bang with the spoon would change how far away it can be and still make the salt jump, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed what you bang with the spoon (Baking tray, Shoebox, Hardback book) and measured how far away it can be and still make the salt jump in cm.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same drum and the same pinch of salt and the same spoon and the same hard bang the same, so only what you bang with the spoon was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 3 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: Baking tray and Hardback book 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: bang each one softly and hard, and measure all six.