echolocation experiments

Bat Echolocation Experiment

• 2 empty paper towel rolls per each set up
• 2 aluminum pie plates per set up
• masking tape

Background Information

Insect-eating bats are nocturnal hunters. Bats use their voice boxes to send out high pitch sounds either from their mouths or noses. When the sounds bounce off an object, the bat gets information about the texture, shape, size, and location of the object. The bat is using echolocation.

Bats also use echolocation for finding a mate and finding their young. Each species of bat produces a distinctive pattern of sound. Most sounds are ultrasonic and can’t be heard by humans.

Set up the experiment on a hard surface, a table works best. Tape down the tubes so that they are angled towards each other but are not touching. Place the aluminum pie plate on its edge, facing the tubes, but at least 12 inches away from it. Either tape it down or place books behind it for support. One child whispers into a tube. Another child listens for the sound to bounce off the pie plate and come back through the other tube.

Let the children experiment with the tubes to see if they can bounce sound off the classroom walls and furniture.

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Science project, echolocation demonstration.

Grade Level: 6th -8th; Type: Physical Science

Demonstrate how we are able to locate sounds, a process called echolocation.

Research Questions:

• How do we localize sounds?
• What happens when we plug one ear?

The classic swimming pool game, Marco Polo, demonstrates our ability to localize sound. With eyes closed we hear “Marco” then swim towards its direction. This ability is only possible with two ears. Although we can hear with just one ear we are not able to distinguish the location of its source as well as or at all compared to two ears. A single ear can process the amplitude (loudness) and frequency (pitch) of a sound wave. But, together, both ears are able to detect sound location through minute differences in timing. If a sound is coming from our right then the waves arrive at our right ear before the left ear. These timing differences are very small, in milliseconds, unconscious to the listener. Animals are able to locate not only the sound, but also objects. Bats, although blind, are able to fly without running into trees, caves, other bats, etc. They navigate by listening to the echoes produced by their own calls, known as echolocation. To some extent humans are able to use echolocation. The blind use canes to walk around, alerting the user of any objects in his or her path. Tapping the cane allows the user to listen to its echoes and sense objects around them, just as bats. In this experiment students will demonstrate how two ears help us locate sounds.

• Large, quite room

Experimental Procedure:

• Recruit at least three subjects to participate.
• Each subject will perform these tasks alone, one by one.
• Have the subject stand in the center of the room, blindfolded.
• To test their ability to locate sound move about the room clapping your hands twice. Each time you clap the subject should turn and face the direction that they think the sound is coming from. Do this several times around the room and record if they are correct or incorrect for each trial.
• Have the subject plug one ear. Repeat step 4.
• Did plugging one ear affect the subject’s ability to locate the sound?

Terms/Concepts: Binaural hearing; Echolocation; Sound waves; Amplitude; Frequency;  Wavelength; Doppler effect

References: Blauert, J. Spatial Hearing: The Psychophysics of Human Sound Localization . Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press; 1997.

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2 Bat Science Experiments and Activities for All Ages – Teach Echolocation & Anatomy!

What makes bats so special isn’t just Batman, Batmobile or Halloween. It’s that they’re the only mammal that can fly!

Every Halloween, we get to decorate our houses with these flying spooksters. And every once in a while kids will ask why their wings are like that, why they squeak like that, or whether they really suck blood as vampires do.

Well, there’s no better way to teach your children about bats than with some nice little STEM activities and experiments.

Today we’ll offer a couple of ways to teach your kids talk about bats, their anatomy and nature, how they feed, how they sleep, and how they fly !

Related Post: 3 Amazing Halloween Arduino Projects for Teens

Interactive Bat Experiments and Activities for All Ages

Get your lab coat and start the experimentation!

1. Bat Echolocation With the Doppler Effect

If turtles use magnetism to navigate , bats use sound! But not just any kind of sound.

Bats as animals have adapted to living in darkness. Their eyesight is very similar to human eyesight. Which means it basically sucks in total darkness, so they have to fully rely on their hearing. 

With their developed ears, they are fully capable of finding food, avoiding obstacles when flying, and even finding mating partners. This natural occurrence is called echolocation, and it’s present in many animals around the globe like bats, dolphins, whales, and even long-horned narwhals.

Bats use different frequencies ranging from 9kHz to 200kHz. During their flight they produce soundwaves. Thanks to the Doppler effect , the sound waves change frequency, and return to them. In the end they are able to break on through the other side without getting hurt.

This experiment will help you understand echolocation with the use of the Doppler effect, and a kids’ toy.

Materials needed:

• Battery-operated toy car;
• A 9-volt battery;
• A 9-volt buzzer/ frequency generator phone application;
• Connectors (if using a buzzer);
• A blindfold;
• Crepe tape;
• A volunteer for helping.
• Wire the buzzer to the battery.
• Tape the battery and buzzer to the car.
• Set a timer to 5 minutes.
• Prepare and turn on the camera.
• Put on the blindfold.
• Have your helper drive the toy car near you, and listen closely.
• Try to explain where the car is moving. Use simple directions like left, right, etc.
• After 5 minutes, take off your blindfold and turn off the camera.
• Review the footage, and discuss.

During the discussion, ask yourself a few questions:

• How many times were you right about the location of the toy?
• How long did it take you to adapt to your sense of hearing?

The best way to modify this experiment is to think outside of the box and be creative. Change your environment: you can test it out in a quiet room or somewhere outside with external factors present. 

You can try it out with multiple cars, a toy helicopter, or have your friend sing to you while moving around you . 

The whole point of this experiment is to experience echolocation and the doppler shift present in moving waves and obstacles.

To sum it up, humans have reliable senses in nature. We have fully developed eyes capable of showing us our surroundings in broad daylight. But when it comes to moving around during the night, we might face a lot of difficulties because we are not used to using our sense of hearing as a primary sense for locating food, people and places.

If we cover our ears, we would be capable of moving around. But if we cover bats’ ears, they will end up hitting a rock in the cave they’re living in or stay without food for a longer period of time.

2. Bat Anatomy Magic Slider Card

Their anatomy may seem very normal: they have a body, they have legs, and they also have wings.

But how do they have wings if they’re mammals?

The thing is, they don’t.

Things aren’t always what they look! Bats have fully developed arms with fingers, covered by two layers of elastic skin which are still being called wings for easier understanding. Their fingers are the longest part of their body. If we calculated their proportions and applied them to humans or other animals, we would end up with fingers longer than 60% of our body. Can you imagine that?

The best way to teach your kids about the anatomy of bats is to create an interactive slider card, revealing the bone structure of a bat.

• 3.9in x 11.8in dense colored paper;
• 3.3in x 5.9in white paper;
• 3.7in x 5.7in clear plastic film;
• 0.2in x 3.5in thin white cardboard;
• 0.2in x 3.4in thin white cardboard;
• 2 0.2in x 5.5in thin white cardboard;
• Black permanent marker;
• Drawing materials of choice(colored pencils, markers, watercolors, etc);
• Measuring tape.
• Fold the colored paper in half.
• Draw a 3.1in x 5.1in rectangle in the middle of one page, to create a border, and cut it out. You should be left with one whole side, and a border.
• Cut out a 3.4in opening in the middle of the folded part. Which will be used for pulling out the white paper and revealing the drawing.
• Prepare a sketch of a bat similar to the one right below. (You can label their bones if you think that’s necessary.)

• Draw the bat on the colored piece of paper and be careful, it should not be covered by the border! After folding, the border should be right on top of the drawing.
• Glue the clear plastic film on the inside of the border. There should be enough space on the border for you to glue the plastic film.
• Take the permanent marker and trace the drawing on the clear plastic film.
• Take the thin 0.2in x 3.4in cardboard and glue it to the white paper.  The cardboard should stick out a bit, and it will stop the white paper from getting completely pulled out from the opening.
• Glue the remaining thin cardboards on the inside of the border.
• Place the white paper in the middle and glue the cardboard border to the colored paper.

You should be left with a magic slider card revealing a drawing of a bat every time you pull out the white paper.

Even though this is not a science related activity, it gives freedom to youngsters to use different measuring methods and apply them to creative arts and crafts activities.

Creative activities can benefit children that are still improving their motor skills, creativity and interest in science. Interactive cards can help kids explore anatomy, how the bones and different tissues work through drawings, pictures, and animations.

This activity is very flexible. You can draw specific body parts, complete skeletons, or cute sketches of bats, that’s up to you! There’s total freedom to experiment and even compare their anatomies with sugar gliders or squirrels for example.

You can use this magic slider card for learning other STEM topics like astronomy, biology, biochemistry, or you can use it as a greetings card and gift it to people.

Bonus Discussion Ideas

Bats are one of the most misunderstood animals on Earth. We see them as scary, blood-sucking creatures, but in fact they are just flying puppies who like flower nectar, fruits. Plus and they help us get rid of creepy-crawly insects.

(Still, even if you think they are cute, don’t do the above. I’ll explain why later on.)

Bats are beneficial to humans and nature, they affect our agriculture, they help with pollination, and the dispersion of seeds. In most cases, we don’t have direct contact with bats, but they can hear us clearly and they avoid us on purpose!

In case you see a bat on the ground near you, you should know that something may be wrong with it, so call your local animal control center and let them deal with it.

Our relation to bats is minimal to none, but throughout the years, we have destroyed some of their living locations like forests or caves, and due to our involvement they are becoming endangered.

More than 200 species of bats are endangered and need our help!

So, the more we educate ourselves about bats, the bigger the chance of their survival!

Even if you get bitten or scratched by a bat, don’t worry! You won’t become the next Count Dracula.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are bats related to flying squirrels.

Even though both species are mammals and they have their similarities, bats aren’t related to flying squirrels.

Bats are part of the Chiroptera order, and they have their order while flying squirrels are part of the Rodentia order and are considered rodents.

On the other hand, bats are closely related to flying lemurs (Dermoptera order), but they don’t have many similarities.

The difference between bats, flying squirrels, and flying lemurs is that flying squirrels and flying lemurs cannot fly, they glide from tree to tree, while bats are the only mammals capable of flying.

What Will Happen if My Child Gets Bitten by a Bat?

Even though bats are not that dangerous to humans, they can cause serious health problems.

Bats carry a vast variety of bacteria and viruses on them and can cause infections and illnesses in humans. The most common bacteria and viruses carried by bats are Rabies, Salmonella, Yersinia, Histoplasma, and various external parasites.

Complications may occur only if the bat is infected with the aforementioned bacteria and viruses, but it’s best to get medical care after being in contact with a bat.

After being bitten/scratched by a bat or after ingesting bat saliva visit a hospital as soon as possible.

Are Bats Dangerous to Pets?

Although bats are known carriers of rabies , they’re not dangerous if left alone and they tend to avoid confrontation, as should you.

If a bat flies into your house, open up your windows and wait until it flies out. Do not, under any circumstance, come close to it, or touch it. Bat repellents can also help ward them off, but they’re a protected species and you may need a federal permit for using repellents.

However, when pets are in question, instead of the unlikely chance of rabies from bat bites, the only thing you need to worry about is bat droppings.

Bat droppings, or guano, contain parasites and the Histoplasmosis fungus that poses a serious respiratory threat to you and your pets. Guano removal requires professionals, so please consult an expert to prevent exposure.

What’s the Bats’ Role in the Ecosystem?

Bats are great pest controllers, pollinators and fertilizers!  

Bats need more than 1000 bugs per hour so they create nests in bigger trees with decaying barks, natural indentations, and lots of fruits. The decaying bark, and fermented fruits attract different kinds of insects and creates a possibility for bats to find food without moving around.

Some bats prefer eating flower nectar, so when they feed and mingle around blooming flowers, the hairs on their skin collect pollen which gets dispersed around nature and pollinates a vast variety of flowers.

Bat droppings (guano) contain a high amount of minerals which are very beneficial to a lot of plants. Bat excrement is used to enrich the soil and produce highly nutritious humus for growing vegetables.

Ana Marija is a young STEM aficionado with a passion for writing. She is a non-formal educator in natural and social sciences, and currently studying theoretical physics at University. Fascinated by music and art, she takes an avant-guarde approach in combining modern-day activities with science.

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Thursday, October 15, 2015

Bat science experiments: echolocation activities.

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• Virtual Science Fair

Echolocation

Have science fun as a family! Complete activities with parental supervision.

• Baking sheet
• Two long cardboard tubes (paper towel or wrapping paper)
• Each person should have one cardboard towel tube.
• Lean a metal baking sheet against a wall.
• Have one person talk through their paper tube, aiming their voice at the baking tray.
• While one person is talking through the tube, the other person should hold their tube to their ear, pointing it at the tray as well.
• Take the tray away and communicating with and without the tray- what do you notice? What is happening?
• Next, test your hearing! Blindfold one person and have them sit somewhere safe, possibly in the center of a room.
• The other person will quietly walk around the blinded folded person and periodically make noises. They can clap, whistle, whistle, or hit the cardboard tubes together—use your imagination!
• When the one person makes the noise, the other should point in the direction that the sound is coming.
• Try loud noises and soft noises. Are some easier than others to pinpoint direction?
• Switch roles and try the experiment again!
• Be sure to take a picture or video to share in the Facebook comments on the Buffalo Museum of Science or Tifft Nature Preserve pages!

What’s it all about?

Sound moves through the air and water in waves. Many animals are adapted to use these sound waves to get information about the world around them. Often, animals with these adaptations live in places where their sense of sight would not be useful, like in darkness or underwater.

Animals like bats, whales and dolphins use echolocation in order to “see” in the dark or underwater. If the sound waves with their squeaks or clicks hit an object, the wave bounces back and returns to the animal. The speed that an echo returns to a bat indicates the distance of the object.

Humans also use echolocation because they looked at what nature can do! Submarines use sonar technology to figure out what’s going on underwater.

• Try to make your own echo. Face different walls or buildings and clap. Depending on the texture of the wall, you may or may not hear an echo. What surfaces work better than others?
• Learning to identify where sounds are coming from is something you can get better at – with practice. Sit somewhere safe outside, close your eyes and listen. What do you hear? Where are the sounds coming from? Are some sounds easier to locate than others?

More Great Virtual Science Fair Activities

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We're celebrating the summer solstice in this Virtual Science Fair activity! Open Activity

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Grab a thermometer for this Virtual Science Fair activity! Open Activity

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Rate the lesson plan, lesson plan, echolocation in action.

Glacier Bay National Park & Preserve

Essential Question

What is echolocation and what role does sound play in an underwater environment?

*How do marine mammals use sound? *What are the most common human-made sounds heard in the ocean? *How might vessel noise affect the behavior (feeding, diving, respiration, resting) of marine mammals? *Why is studying underwater acoustics important to the survival of marine mammals?

Marine animals rely on sound to acoustically sense their surroundings, communicate, locate food, and protect themselves underwater. Some predators, like orcas (killer whales) and dolphins, use echolocation to find prey. By emitting short pulses of sounds called clicks, these marine mammals listen for echoes to detect prey and navigate around obstacles. Similarly, some fish are able to hear the killer whale clicks and avoid capture! Because these animals live in a relatively dark environment, being able to "see" acoustically is important to their survival. Engineers have mimicked this natural echolocation in SONAR ( SO und N avigation A nd R anging) which works the same way as echolocation in animals.

Some blind people use sonar by listening to the echoes from taps of their canes to help them avoid objects or help them determine how far they are away from a wall. Sound travels faster and farther underwater than through air. This means that sounds produced by marine animals and humans can travel great distances without much loss to the quality of the sound. These sounds are often reflected by underwater topography making it tricky to communicate using sound underwater. Marine mammals must be able to sort out all the echoes in the water in order to effectively communicate and feed. Whales and dolphin anatomy and sensory systems are adapted to meet this challenge. 

While humpback whales do not echolocate, they do use sound to communicate and may use sound to navigate and find food. Glacier Bay is currently studying the effects underwater sound may have on the feeding behavior of endangered humpback whales. Research shows that whales may move away from preferred feeding areas when disturbed by boat noise. Repeated disturbances could be detrimental to Alaskan humpbacks, who must feed enough during the summer to sustain themselves through their 3,000 mile roundtrip migration to and from Hawaii. Additionally, increased ambient noise, or background noise, may make it difficult for humpback whales and other animals to communicate, find mates and more.

Preparation

• Review background information
• Preview video
• Print student materials

Students use in rounds 1 to 3.

Download Echolocation Worksheet

Worksheet for student use in step 2.

Download Echolocation Bar Graph Worksheet

Lesson Hook/Preview

Do Now: When you hear a strange noise, how do you figure out what it is? Jot down your thoughts in your notebook.

Step 1:  Engagement (10 minutes)

Tell students they are going to hone their sense of hearing by using their hands to make "cups." Teach them how to cup their hands around their ears facing forward, then backward. This will help focus sounds to their ears. Tell them it may be useful during the next investigation. Allow them to experiment with their new "ears" by trying to focus on a sound in the room. You can have a student go to the back of the room and clap. 

Ask students to carefully listen to several underwater sounds from the clips provided. All of these sounds were recorded using the hydrophone in Glacier Bay. Listen to all six, so students will have the opportunity to discriminate between human-made, animal, and other natural sounds. As you play each clip, have students try to identify the sound source (what is making the sound) and write it in their journals. Ask students to explain experiences they've had with sound underwater.

Underwater sounds recorded in Glacier Bay (click here for a page with audio recordings)

echolocation, sonar, sound source

Enrichment Activities

Have students compile their data and make comparisons. Create one large chart or bar graph using computer programs like Excel or Word Charts/Graphs. For a more challenging activity, have students plot actual location of snap versus real location and then find the percent of correct responses. 

Have students watch the short four-minute video  Dean Hudson, acoustic navigator . Dean is visually impaired and uses sound clues to navigate the city. Have several students wear blindfolds or close their eyes while making sound. They can either clap or snap their fingers. See if they can interpret the echoes to navigate around the room without bumping into objects or a wall. Be sure to give them plenty of space and use some students as monitors to help prevent trips or falls.

Additional Resources

Glacier Bay Acoustic Monitoring Glacier Bay Underwater Acoustics Video Teach Engineering , resources for K-12 from the University of Colorado.     The Cornell Lab Bioacoustics Research Program Exploratorium, The Listen Project

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Last updated: March 8, 2024

FREE K-12 standards-aligned STEM

curriculum for educators everywhere!

Find more at TeachEngineering.org .

• TeachEngineering
• Radar: Using Sound for Sight

Lesson Radar: Using Sound for Sight

Grade Level: 6 (4-6)

Time Required: 1 hour

Lesson Dependency: None

Subject Areas: Data Analysis and Probability, Life Science, Science and Technology

NGSS Performance Expectations:

• Print lesson and its associated curriculum

Curriculum in this Unit Units serve as guides to a particular content or subject area. Nested under units are lessons (in purple) and hands-on activities (in blue). Note that not all lessons and activities will exist under a unit, and instead may exist as "standalone" curriculum.

• All Caught Up: Acting Out Bycatching Points of View
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• Echolocation Experimentation: Can You Hear It?

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Engineering connection, learning objectives, worksheets and attachments, more curriculum like this, pre-req knowledge, introduction/motivation, associated activities, lesson closure, vocabulary/definitions, user comments & tips.

After learning how echolocation works, students discuss how net designs can be made easier for dolphins to "see" via echolocation and thus help them avoid getting tangled in nets. Engineers are also inspired by concepts observed in nature, such as echolocation; for instance, sonar on submarines is simply a type of echolocation.

After completing this lesson, students should be able to:

• Define "echolocation" and list three benefits for the dolphin species.
• Explain that dolphins have a better sense of hearing than humans
• Define all lesson key words and be able to make statements in a discussion that relate the keywords to dolphins and their behaviors in the ecosystem.
• Explain why dolphins need their echolocation abilities especially when hunting deep below the ocean's surface.
• Describe how dolphins are mammals and not fish, and give at least one reason why.
• Define bycatch and explain what happens to the animals affected.
• Explain how dolphins can use echolocation to avoid nets.
• Discuss how nets can be better engineered to protect dolphins from bycatch by taking advantage of echolocation.

Educational Standards Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards. All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN) , a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org). In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g. , by state; within source by type; e.g. , science or mathematics; within type by subtype, then by grade, etc .

Ngss: next generation science standards - science.

International Technology and Engineering Educators Association - Technology

View aligned curriculum

Do you agree with this alignment? Thanks for your feedback!

State Standards

North carolina - science.

• Knowledge from participating in the activity.
• Basic knowledge of a food chain and energy pyramid.
• (for 7th and 8th graders) Very basic knowledge about the human sense of hearing and the nervous system.

If you have access to the PBS video, "In the Wild--Dolphins with Robin Williams," show it to the class as a great way to kick off the lesson on dolphins. The video is entertaining and informative; Robin Williams attempts to communicate with dolphins in captivity in the Bahamas and Hawaii. Also, you can motivate students by asking the question, "How do you think dolphins perceive nets?" and then follow up with a discussion of echolocation and how dolphins can track objects and their surfaces by using clicking sounds and hearing how they bounce off of other objects.

After the activity, perhaps some time later, have students discuss the activity. Use the Example Echolocation Discussion Questions to transition from the activity to the lesson and help spur students' curiosity and their involvement in the discussion. Since students most likely enjoyed the activity, expect them to be excited and likely have a lot they want to share with the rest of the class. Use the questions as a guide to keep the discussion educational and related to the subject at hand. During the discussion, permit students to share their answers and theories without giving out the correct answers yet. Instead, respond to the students by asking related questions that get them thinking even more!

Body of Lesson

After the discussion (allow 15-20 min), clear up any misconceptions students made in their responses to discussion questions. Point out that the activity or game played was only a simulation of how echolocation works and does not directly show what happens in real life. For instance, in the game the dolphin sends a signal and the objects, perhaps a fish or rock, respond by sending a signal back to the dolphin. Students may get confused and think that the fish generated the signal that the dolphin receives and interprets, when in reality the sound wave simply bounces off the fish and the fish has no idea that it is on the dolphins "radar screen" at all. Be sure to clear up these misconceptions.

Next, show students the Dolphin Anatomy Transparency , which is a diagram of the anatomy of a dolphin's head with key features of its echolocation ability labeled. If possible (especially for a 7th grade class), compare this diagram with a human ear anatomy diagram and discuss differences in functions. Explain the functions of features like the Nasal sacs, Melon, Panbone (or lower jaw), etc. Also discuss how the swim bladder of fish and other aquatic creatures is a hollow organ that produces the main echo during echolocation. Following this explanation, ask students why they think it might be harder to receive an echo from a fishing net. Close this brief discussion by defining bycatch and talking about its negative implications for the dolphin species (possible endangerment/extinction). A misconception students may make during this discussion is that the nets do not catch fish but only dolphins (which is what happened in the game), which may confuse the essential concept of bycatch. Let them know that in reality the nets are meant to catch fish but also catch dolphins in the process.

Before handing out the worksheet, if time permits, lecture or discuss the following topics. Expect students to have some preliminary knowledge on topics such as food chains and the human senses:

• Predator-prey relationships. What eats what?
• Dolphin classification (mammal vs. fish)
• Other detection techniques of organisms (sight, smell, sound, taste, feel)
• Frequency (faster vibrations = higher frequency, vice versa); sounds with different frequencies come from different objects during echolocation.
• Density (dolphins can roughly determine the density of objects during echolocation; density=mass/volume).

Lesson Background and Concepts for Teachers

• Echolocation is the ability to orient by transmitting sound and receiving echoes from objects in the environment.
• Frequency (vibrations per second or Hz)
• Wavelength (lambda, meters)
• Sound pressure level (dB or decibels)
• Wavelength = speed of sound(meters/second) / frequency
• Humans can hear from 20 to 20,000 Hz
• Ultrasonic > 20 kHz
• Infrasonic < 20 Hz
• Attenuation is the dissipation of signal strength with distance (less sound intensity the further away)
• Effects of wavelength - high frequencies/short wavelengths attenuate rapidly in water.
• Low frequency/long wavelength sound waves travel farther in water with less attenuation.
• Echolocation is comprised of three distinct processes: 1) sound production, 2) sound reception, 3) signal processing
• The dolphin auditory nerve has twice the amount of nerve fibers as the human auditory nerve.
• Source of echolocation signals (controversial-need more experiments to confirm): 1) larynx (Purves & colleagues), 2) nasal sacs (Norris & colleagues).

"The dolphin is able to generate sound in the form of clicks, within its nasal sacs, situated behind the melon. The frequency of this click is higher than that of the sounds used for communication and differs between species. The melon acts as a lens that focuses the sound into a narrow beam that is projected in front of the animal. Refer to the associated activity Let Your Ears Do the Walking for students to play a modified game of "Marco Polo" to understand the difficulty of using only the sense of sound to observe their environment - a simulation of how dolphins relate to their environment. 

When the sound strikes an object, some of the energy of the sound wave is reflected back towards the dolphin. It would appear that the panbone in the dolphin's lower jaw receives the echo, and the fatty tissue behind it transmits the sound to the middle ear and hence to the brain. It has recently been suggested that the teeth of the dolphin, and the mandibular nerve that runs through the jawbone may transmit additional information to the dolphin's brain.

As soon as an echo is received, the dolphin generates another click. The time lapse between click and echo enables the dolphin to evaluate the distance between it and the object; the varying strength of the signal as it is received on the two sides of the dolphin's head enable it to evaluate direction. By continuously emitting clicks and receiving echoes in this way, dolphins can track objects and hone in on them.

The echolocation system of the dolphin is extremely sensitive and complex. Using only its acoustic senses, a bottlenose dolphin can discriminate between practically identical objects that differ by 10% or less in volume or surface area. It can do this in a noisy environment, can whistle and echolocate at the same time, and echolocate on near and distant targets simultaneously, feats that leave human sonar experts gasping." (May, John, ed. The Greenpeace Book of Dolphines . Sterling Publishing Company. 1991. pg 30.)

Click on the following link to see another diagram of a dolphin's anatomy. https://www.dolphins-world.com/dolphin-anatomy/

The sonar of dolphins may be the most sophisticated of all sonar systems, biological or human-made, in shallow waters and for short ranges. The Atlantic bottlenose dolphin emit short-duration (50--70 (microseconds), high-frequency (120--140 kHz), broadband (40--50 kHz) echolocation signals with peak-to-peak amplitudes up to 228 dB. The type of signals used by dolphins play a significant role in their sonar discrimination capabilities. They have been observed detecting, classifying, and retrieving prey that is buried in sandy bottom up to a depth of about 0.3 m. In addition, controlled echolocation experiments have shown that dolphins can discriminate wall thickness, material composition, shape and size of targets. Students can conduct their own experiment with the associated activity Echolocation Experimentation: Can You Hear It? where they use marbles and a box prepared by the teacher to experience how much sound can tell them about an unknown object. 

Gillnets are fishing nets made of monofilament line, a translucent plastic material. Dolphins have trouble seeing these nets in the water and must use echolocation to detect them. Larger mesh nets (nets with bigger squares of monofilament) are more difficult to detect because there is less monofilament in the nets (larger holes). We don't know why dolphins become entangled. One hypothesis is that dolphins mistakenly blunder into these nets because they are not paying attention to where they are going; another hypothesis is that dolphins get fish out of the nets and become entangled in the process. In order to reduce bycatch (catching dolphins and other non-target species) in nets, fishery managers suggest the use of smaller mesh gillnets, gillnets with metal in the monofilament (reflective nets) or pingers (instruments that make noise attached to nets) to scare dolphins away from the fishing gear. The study of echolocation has enabled scientists to better understand and engineers to design modified equipment and approaches to better protect dolphins and other marine mammals.

• Let Your Ears Do the Walking - Students play a modified game of "Marco Polo" to understand the difficulty of using only the sense of sound to observe their environment - a simulation of how dolphins relate to their environment.
• Echolocation Experimentation: Can You Hear It? - Using marbles and a box prepred by the teacher, students experience how much sound can tell them about an unknown object.

Briefly review the following topics with students before handing out the worksheet.

• What is echolocation? (Answer: The ability to orient by transmitting sound and receiving echoes from objects in the environment.)
• Why is echolocation important to dolphins? (Answer: It is the method by which they locate and capture prey, escape predators and navigate in dark ocean environments.)
• How does attenuation, frequency, size of object, distance of object affect the effectiveness of echolocation?
• In looking at the various predator-prey relationships in the dolphin ecosystem, how is energy transferred through that ecosystem? Give an example of a food chain in the dolphin ecosystem.
• What is bycatch and what happens to the animals affected?
• Why is echolocation important? Why should we care whether or not dolphins can detect nets?
• Challenge students to think of new methods of technology to change the affects of bycatch.

abiotic factors: The non-living physical features of the environment (such as water, nets, boats).

attenuation: The dissipation of signal strength with distance through a medium.

biotic factors: Living or once-living organisms in the environment.

bycatch: The catching and killing of marine life, including sea turtles, birds and fish of the species not targeted by the fishery, or that are either of the wrong size or sex to be of optimal value to humans.

echolocation: The ability to orient by transmitting sound and receiving echoes from objects in the environment.

ecosystem: A system involving the interactions between living organisms and the physical environment.

food chain: A simple way of showing how energy in the form of food passes from one organism to another.

frequency: The number of repetitions per unit of time (cycles per sec).

gillnet: A single sheet of webbing that hangs between a floating line and a weighted lead line; an example of a stationary net (one that is not pulled through the water).

period: The time between each repetition (seconds per cycle) or wavelength.

signal: A message containing information that is transmitted and received.

sound: Vibrations; a form of energy that travels in waves through a medium.

wavelength: The distance between the point on one wave and an identical point on the next wave.

• To assess what students have learned in the lesson, have them complete the worksheet.
• Challenge students to apply what they have learned by writing about how bycatch affects dolphins and how we may prevent it.

Lesson Extension Activities

Have students conduct research on human ears and hearing, contrasting with dolphin hearing. Discuss student findings as a class.

In this lesson, students are shown pictures of entangled marine animals and then learn the definition of bycatch. This leads to discussions on why bycatching exists, how it impacts specific animals as well as humans, whether the students believe it is an important issue, and how bycatch can be reduc...

Students learn about echolocation: what it is and how engineers use it to "see" things in the dark, or deep underwater. They also learn how animals use echolocation to catch their meals and travel the ocean waters and skies without running into things.

Students drop marbles into holes cut into shoebox lids and listen carefully to try to determine the materials inside the box that the marbles fall onto, illustrating the importance of surface composition on dolphins' abilities to sense materials, depth and texture using echolocation.

Through this curricular unit, students analyze the significance of bycatch in the global ecosystem and propose solutions to help reduce bycatch. They become familiar with current attempts to reduce the fishing mortality of these animals. Through the associated activities, the challenges faced today ...

Au, W. W. L.The Sonar of Dolphins. New York, NY: Springer-Verlag.

Barrett-Leonard, L. G. et al. 1996. The mixed blessing of echolocation: differences in sonar use by fish-eating and mammal-eating killer whales. Animal Behavior 51: 553-565.

Cranford, T. W. et al. 1996. Functional morphology and homology in the odontocete nasal complex: implications for sound generation. Journal of Morphology 228: 223-285.

Deecke, V.B. et al. 2002. Selective habituation shapes acoustic predator recognition in harbour seals. Nature 420: 171-173.

Harrison, Sir Richard, et. al. Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises. New York, NY: Facts on File, Inc., 1994.

Mark Carwardine.The Book of Dolphins. Dragon's World Ltd, 1996.

May, John, ed. The Greenpeace Book of Dolphins. Sterling Publishing Company. 1991.

http://library.thinkquest.org/17963/head.html

"In the Wild with Robin Williams" video 1997. Available at amazon.com

Marine Mammal Biology, An Evolutionary Approach. 2002. Edited by: R. Hoelzel. Blackwell Science, Ltd., Oxford, UK.

Biology of Marine Mammals. 1999. Edited by: J. Reynolds III and S. Rommel. Smithsonian Institution, WDC, USA.

Contributors

Supporting program, acknowledgements.

This content was developed by the MUSIC (Math Understanding through Science Integrated with Curriculum) Program in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University under National Science Foundation GK-12 grant no. DGE 0338262. However, these contents do not necessarily represent the policies of the NSF, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.

Last modified: October 31, 2023

Bat Science Activities

Do you have a budding scientist at home? These Bat Science Activities are perfect for homeschool kids who love science!

This list is filled with fun and educational activities that will teach them all about bats. Your child will learn about the bat life cycle, echolocation, and more. They’ll be a bat expert in no time.

Keep reading and find a fun bat activity that you can do with your child.

You can also check my bigger list of Bat Activities for Kids for more bat-themed activities.

This post may contain affiliate links meaning I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post. Read my disclosure policy here.

See a list of my favorite Amazon Deals for your home and homeschool.

Role of Bats in the Ecosystem

Bats are incredible creatures that play an important role in our ecosystem.

There are over 1,300 species of bat, and they can be found on every continent except for Antarctica. Bats use echolocation to navigate in the dark, and their unique anatomy allows them to fly.

Bats also play a vital role in controlling insect populations. In fact, some farmers even encourage bats to live on their property in order to reduce the number of crop-damaging pests.

Unfortunately, bats are facing a number of challenges, including habitat loss, a decrease of food supply, roost destruction, and more. As a result, many bat species are now endangered.

It is important to learn about these amazing creatures and do our part to protect them.

What is Echolocation?

Have you ever wondered how bats can fly through the night without bumping into things? The answer is echolocation. Echolocation is a way of seeing in the dark by making sounds and listening for the echoes.

Bats use echolocation to find insects to eat. They emit high-pitched sounds that bounce off objects and then listen for the echoes. By interpreting the echoes, bats can figure out where an object is and what it is made of.

That’s why they’re so good at hunting in the dark.

Recommended Bat Books

Find out how fascinating bats are in these books about bats! Grab a couple of these amazing books for your homeschool science lesson about bats.

Recommended Bat Activity Kits

Little Learners Print & Go Activity Kit: Bats

Learn all about bats with lapbook pieces, tracing & an included study guide.

Bats and Spiders Sensory Kit

Kids will enjoy playing with this play dough kit with bats and spider-shaped cutters. Perfect gift for your child this Halloween.

Learning will be fun with these bat-themed science activities!

Fizzy Bat Experiment

Kids will love this experiment because it's bat-shaped and fizzy!

Bat Life Cycle Worksheets

Teach kids about the bat life cycle with these worksheets.

Fizzing Baking Soda Bats Experiment

Another fizzy experiment that you can do with your kids. Perfect for bat lovers!

Echolocation Activity for Kids

Have your kids discover what echolocation is with this simple activity.

Halloween Science: Dancing Ghosts and Bats

Watch how ghosts and bats dance because of static electricity. Kids will enjoy this one!

Bat Science Experiments: Echolocation Activities!

Three simple activities to teach kids about echolocation.

Printable Bat Science Activities

If you want more information about bats, these printable activities can help you a lot in homeschooling your kids.

"How a Bat Grows" Printable eBook

This printable mini e-book is perfect in teaching kids about how bats grow.

Going "BATTY!"

Kids will learn how bats use sounds and scents to locate their prey or their own babies.

Bat Life cycle and Parts of a Bat Printable

These bat printables will surely make your homeschool lesson fun and engaging.

Bats are more than just creatures of the night. Though they are often associated with spooky Halloween decorations and horror movies, these fascinating animals are very important in our ecosystem.

So let’s get to know more about them with these fun bat science activities.

More Halloween Activities

Bat Worksheets for Elementary Students

Books About Bats for Toddlers

Bat Coloring Pages

Paper Plate Spider Craft

Skeleton Activities for Kindergarten

Fun Halloween Toddler Activities

Halloween Lacing Cards

Halloween Preschool Activities

Bubbling Halloween Lava Lamp by STEAMsational

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Echolocation Experiment

What is echolocation?

Explaining how toothed whales ‘see’ the world

• One stopwatch
• One ball, preferably a basketball or kickball
• One wall, preferably brick
• Up to 25 feet of room

Explanation

• Explain to your students that toothed whales, such as the sperm whale, use echolocation to locate their prey or other objects in the water. The whales can determine the size and shape of an object as well as how far away it is by the ‘echo’ that returns to them after they emit a sound.

Throw a ball at a wall with equal force from the following distances:

Have a student record how long it takes the ball to return to the thrower from each distance.

Which throw bounced back in the least number of seconds?

Which throw bounced back after the greatest number of seconds?

What happens as you move away from the wall? What happens when you move closer to the wall?

Explain how this might relate to echolocation. Using echolocation, how do you think a whale can determine how far away an object is?

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Bat Activities That are Kid-Approved!

We’re batty for bats! There is so much intrigue to these nocturnal animals that you can do an entire unit on them.

So today on the blog, we’ve rounded up our favorite bat activities for kids!

Check out these crafts, STEM experiments, and recipes perfect for any level elementary classroom.

Bat Crafts for Kids

This  Paper Plate Bat Craft  is the perfect complement to There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat! To grab a book companion, which includes an interactive adapted piece set for the story, click the link  here .

This  Splatter Paint Bat Artwork  gives your students the chance to explore painting in a new light- by using a spray bottle instead of the typical brush! Keep those smocks in reach because this one might get messy. 

Bring crafting to life with this  Paper Plate Bat Puppet Craft . Students can enjoy this process art activity and then use their imaginations to put on a show. 

Another twist to the bat puppet is this  Paper Bag Bat!  This is simpler to make than the paper plate puppet craft and only requires a few materials.

Add some color to your bat crafts with these little  cuties . The dyed coffee filters give a tie-dye twist on the traditional black bat. 

Bat STEM Experiments for Kids

It’s almost a guarantee that students will get a kick out of fizzy experiments every time they’re done, and this one is no different! Watch what happens when baking soda and vinegar react with one another with this  Fizzy Bat Experiment . This activity is also bat-tacular for fine-motor practice! 

Watch bats do a little boogie with this  Dancing Bats  activity that demonstrates static electricity!

Teach about echolocation with these  Bat Science Experiments . There are three different ones to choose from, including a fun gross motor activity that will get students up and moving. 

Try this  experiment with a slinky  if you want to add even more echolocation exploration to your bat unit. Your students (and you) will definitely get a giggle out of this one!

Promote problem-solving with this  Flying Bats STEM Activity . See if students can figure out how to make the bat fly and see if they can change speeds. 

These  Flying Bat Straw Rockets  can be done independently and make for great early finishers! Students just color, cut, and watch their bats soar with the help of paper straws. 

Bat Recipes for Kids

Your students will go batty for these  Graham Cracker Bats . These are a sugary treat that they’ll look forward to! The original recipe calls for black candy melts to cover the graham cracker, but white frosting with black food coloring is an alternative. 

If peanut butter is allowed in your school, try these  Mini Reese’s Bat Snacks ! With just three ingredients, this is a simple snack your students can put together and enjoy in no time at all.

No-bake recipes are easy to do in the classroom. For example, try this  Spooky Bat Halloween Rice Krispie Treats . Pro tip: You can also purchase pre-made Rice Krispie Treats and have students create the bat decorations. 

Roll art and cooking into one with this  Starry Night Painted Toast . 

While this recipe is certainly not edible, this  Black Glitter Slime  still requires students to put their measuring skills to work. 

Do you tie bats into your Halloween unit or do you teach them during a different time of the year? Tell us in the comments!

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE:

• Halloween Books for Special Education Classrooms
• Non-Candy Treats for Halloween
• There Was An Old Mummy Who Swallowed a Spider (Books Teachers Love)

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Posted on Last updated: November 24, 2020 By: Author Kim

Categories STEM Activities

How Did You Hear That? Simple Sound Science for Kids

Simple Sound Science Activities for Kids

Let’s talk about sound.  My children are very familiar with it, at least they are quite good at volume.  Kids are really great at producing sound, and most of them enjoy being loud.

So why not take advantage of that interest and talk about how sound works.  How do we hear sounds? What are sound waves?  Can we see sound?  Give your children an excuse to be loud for an afternoon.  Here are 4 easy and fun sound science experiments for toddlers and preschoolers.

What's In This Post?

What are Sound Waves?

How does sound work.

Before we get into the fun activities, let’s learn a bit about how sound works.

What is sound?  Sound is carried by waves, not unlike the waves we looked at when we learned about color .  These waves require a medium to travel through, which on earth is the atmosphere that surrounds us.

We can’t see them, but there are millions of molecules floating around everywhere.  These molecules transfer energy, which is how a wave moves.

This is the same way colors move as waves through the atmosphere.  The difference between sound and color is that color comes from light waves and sound waves come from vibration.

Sounds originate through some sort of vibration.  Think of hitting a gong.  When you strike it, it vibrates.  These vibrations are energy waves that travel through the air.

Only unlike color, which is perceived with the eye, these waves interact with our eardrums.  Our eardrums vibrate and pass on the waves to our inner ear, where our brain can perceive it as sound.

(There is more to the anatomical part of hearing, but our focus right now is on the sound waves outside of the ear.)

Want more wave science? Learn how colors work!

Properties of Sound Waves

There are two big properties that describe sound waves: frequency and amplitude .

Frequency is how quickly the wave is moving.  Is it a quick vibration that created the sound, or a slow one?

Frequency impacts pitch.  A fast frequency will create a higher pitch.  A slower frequency has a lower pitch.

This is a great time to explain pitch to little ones too.  It’s easy to demonstrate.  Speak in a high voice (like you just had some helium), this is a high pitch.  Have your child try it.  Then have them speak in a very low voice (I told Ben to talk like Daddy), this is a low pitch.

Amplitude is how big the wave is, and this affects volume.  (This is where the word amplifier comes from.) A big wave will have a loud sound.  A small wave will have a quiet sound.

Here is an example to help visualize these.  Think of a great big gong.  When you hit it big slow vibrations are created.  It makes a deep, loud sound.  This is because it has big waves that are moving slowly.

Now think of a tiny gong.  When you hit it you create small fast vibrations.  It makes a high sound and is quieter than the big gong.  This is because it has small waves moving quickly.

See waves in action with science by the pool.

Sound Wave Activities

Now that we know a bit about how sound waves work, let’s explore them in action!

Balloon Amplifier

Want to make the world’s easiest amplifier?

Blow up a balloon, hold it up, and tap on it.  It doesn’t make a super loud sound.  Next, hold the balloon up to your child’s ear and lightly tap on it.  It sounds pretty loud!

Why does this happen?  When you blow up a balloon you are packing it with air molecules.  They are very close together and transmit sound waves super well compared to the air just around us normally.

When we tapped the balloon while we were just holding it those waves had to move through the less compressed ambient air to get to our ears, and the sound is softer.

When we hold the balloon up to our ears the sound just has to get through the tightly packed molecules in the balloon and we hear a louder sound.  It is amplified.

Can you see sound?  Well, we can’t see the sound waves as they move through the air.  (Though picture the waves you see when you drop a rock into water. They look a lot like that!) But we can see the vibrations that create sound transmitted between surfaces with a little help.

• Plastic Wrap
• Uncooked Rice
• Metal Spoon

Put the plastic wrap tightly over the bowl.  (One sheet, as tight as you can get it.) Put about 1 teaspoon of rice on the plastic.

Then hold the metal pan close to the bowl and have your child hit it with the spoon.  The harder they hit it the better.  The rice will dance!

What is happening is that the pan vibrates, creating a sound wave.  This wave is transmitted through the air molecules and cause the plastic wrap to start vibrating as well, making the rice dance!

You are seeing the result of the sound waves in the rice.  Are any patterns formed? Try hitting the pan harder and then more gently.  How does the behavior of the rice change?

If you want to be a cool mom see if your child can hit the pan hard enough to bounce the rice right off the plastic!

Transmit Sound Through String

Remember making telephones with your friends using cans and string? Yeah, me neither.  I’m not that old.  (And how did kids drill holes in the cans anyway?)  But we can use this idea to show kids how sound travels through a medium.

• A Long Piece of Yarn
• 2 Spoons of Different Sizes

Take the yarn and tie it around the spoon so the spoon is in the middle of the piece.  Take the two long pieces on either side and have your child hold them up to their ears.

You want to bunch up the string loosely and have them put it in their ears.  Not too far (safety!), more like you are just trying to block out other sounds.  Then tap on the spoon with the pencil.  And watch their faces.

Hitting the spoon with the pencil causes the spoon to vibrate.   Remember, sound needs a medium to travel through, and in this case, the yarn is that medium.  It transmits the sound directly to your ears.

What makes it so much louder?  In an open room, sound waves transmit in all directions.  So what you hear is not everything that is being produced.  Air molecules are not very tightly packed, which also makes the sound less intense.

With the yarn most of the wave is being sent right to your sound receptors, making it more distinct and louder.

Have your child try the other spoon.  How do the sounds compare?  Try different lengths of string. What does that do to the sounds?

Want to make more music? Here are 5 easy DIY instruments to make at home!

How Do Echos Work?

How do echoes work? What makes you hear a sound a second and third time like that?

• 2 Paper Towel Tubes

Prop the pie pan up on a table so it is vertical.  Take one paper towel tube and place it on the table, angled a bit but aimed at the pie plate.  Take the other paper towel and have it angled the opposite way, also aimed at the pie plate.

Have your child put his ear to one of the tubes while you talk softly into the other.  You can hear what is said through the other tube!

The sound waves you create by speaking travel through the tube.  They are directed through the tubes, hit the pie plate, and bounce off, traveling back through the other tube.  You are hearing the echo.

An echo is when a sound wave bounces off of a surface.  Some surfaces are better for echoes than others.  For example, bathrooms are often very good at creating echoes.  This is because they are usually full of hard surfaces like tile that bounce back sound waves effectively.  A fun bath time activity is to explore your echo with your child.

These are simple and fun ways to demonstrate how sound waves work with kids.  And you don’t have to stop with these.  Make some musical instruments and see what other vibrations you can create.  (This is also a great sensory activity.  Learn why those are so important: The Big Benefits of Sensory Play )

Take a nature walk and tap on things with sticks.  Try making high pitches and low pitches.  Explore echoes.  Sounds are all around us.  Encourage your kids to take a listen and explore the science behind the sound.

Find your next fun activity!

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Sunday 24th of March 2019

My son absolutely loved these activities! We had a spoon on a string for days. Thank you so much for the ideas, it made our preschool time fun.

I'm so glad he liked it! We love the spoon one too. It's so exciting when our kids get into STEM!

Monday 9th of July 2018

These are wonderful activities! My girls are going to love learning about sound!

Saturday 23rd of June 2018

These are such fun and easy sound experiments! Great ideas.

kimcartwright

They were fun! It's cool to look at something we experience every day in a new light.

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3 Fun and Easy Sound Experiments for Kids

May 15, 2022

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How do you explain ‘sound’? Why do we have two ears? Can you hear in space? Dr Naomi Lavelle from Dr How’s Science Wows explains and explores the science of sound with 3 fun and easy sound experiments for kids to try.

Science is all around us, from the air we breathe to everything we can see, smell, touch, taste and hear around us. Encouraging a love of science can start at a young age, and you can do plenty of easy science experiments at home using normal household items.

With these three simple sound experiments, your child can learn all about sound – perhaps something we don’t really think about too much?

YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY: Download Your FREE Fun Sound Scavenger Hunt for Kids

What is Sound?

Sound is a type of energy made by vibrations. These sound vibrations move through the air (or other matter) to our ear and our brain can then work out what we are hearing.

Sound vibrations travel as a type of wave that we cannot see. These sound waves need something containing molecules (particles) to travel through. Sound waves can travel through solids, liquids and gases (air), because they are made up of molecules. The molecules carry sound waves by bumping into each other, just like dominoes knocking each other over.

Did you know? Sound waves travel in water at a speed of nearly one mile (1.6 km) a second, which is more than four times faster than sound travels through air!

Why Do We Need Two Ears?

We need two ears to work out exactly where a noise is coming from. Our brain can compare the level of noise reaching each ear and calculate the position of the source of the noise.

Did you know? During the making of the film Jurassic Park , Stephen Spielberg wanted a dramatic effect to signal the arrival of the T. rex.

Inspiration finally came while he was driving home listening to Earth, Wind and Fire and noticed the vibration effect of the base rhythm.

In the film we see ripples in a glass of water, caused by the T. rex‛s footsteps. This special effect was achieved by someone plucking guitar strings under the dashboard.

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Can We Hear in Space?

Sound waves need molecules to travel through so, as there are no molecules in space (or very little), there is no sound in space.

Did you know? Thunder is the sound made by lightning? Sound travels in air at a speed of about one mile in five seconds.

If you count the seconds between seeing the lightning and hearing the thunder you can work out the distance from the source of the thunder.

For example, if you count ten seconds between the lightning and the thunder then you can tell the storm is about two miles away.

What is Echolocation?

An echo is made when sound waves you make bounce off a solid object and travel back to your ear. Some mammals use echoes to help to navigate and to find food – this is called echolocation.

Bats use echolocation to fly and hunt at night. They send out high pitched squeaks and clicks almost constantly. These sounds are called ultrasonic, they are too high for humans to hear. A bat can tell from the echoes bouncing back to it, where an object is, its size and shape and whether it is moving or not.

Whales and dolphins use echolocation just like bats, but the ultrasonic sounds they make travel through water instead of air.

Did you know? A bat can detect an object as small as a human hair using echolocation!

YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY: How to Make an Easy Homemade Lava Lamp

Download our 50 fun outdoor activities checklist for lots of great ideas to enjoy in the fresh air!

3 Fun Sound Experiments to Try at Home

#1. can you feel sound waves.

You Will Need:

What to Do: Blow up the balloon and tie it closed. Turn on the radio to a song with low base music. Hold the balloon between your two hands and hold it very near the speaker of the radio. What can you feel? Change to a different radio station and see if the vibrations change.

What is Happening? The sound coming from the radio makes the air near it vibrate. The air molecules in the balloon are squeezed more tightly together making them vibrate more strongly. We feel these vibrations in our hands.

#2. Can You Make Sound with Bottles?

• two identical bottles

What to Do: Fill one of the bottles two-thirds full with water and the other bottle one-third full. First, blow across the top of each of the bottles – which one makes a higher sound? Next, tap each of the bottles with the spoon – now which one makes the higher sound?

What is Happening? Blowing across the top of the bottles makes the air inside vibrate. The bottle with less air will make the higher sound. When you tap the bottles it is the water that vibrates. The bottle with less water will make the higher sound. Small amounts of air or water vibrate more quickly, making a higher sound.

Next Step: If you want to make this even more fun, you can use a lot of bottles with different amounts of water in each and see how many different sounds you can get!

#3. Can You Watch Sound Waves Travel?

• a small plastic drinking bottle (empty)
• a small piece of plastic (i.e. a plastic bag)
• an elastic band
• a tea-light candle

What to Do: Use the scissors to carefully cut the end off the plastic bottle (ask an adult to do it for you). Stretch the piece of plastic over the open end of the bottle and secure it using the elastic band. Ask an adult to light the tea-light for you, and remove the bottle cap. Hold the narrow end of the bottle near the flame and then tap on the plastic at the other end of the bottle. What happens to the flame?

What is Happening? When you tap the plastic it acts like a drum. The sound waves it creates make the air molecules vibrate. These vibrating molecules then make the molecules beside them vibrate. The vibrations travel through the air in the bottle and blow out the flame.

You can see these sound experiments demonstrated here:

Visit Science Wows for more fun science facts and experiments and follow Dr How on Facebook  and Twitter .

YOU MAY ALSO ENJOY: 18 Easy Science Experiments Perfect for Preschoolers

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What Is Echolocation? Definition and Examples in the Animal and Human Worlds

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Echolocation is a physiological process that certain animals use to locate objects in areas of low visibility. The animals emits high-pitched sound waves that bounce off objects, returning an “echo” and providing them information about the object’s size and distance. This way, they are able to map out and navigate their surroundings even when unable to see.

The skill is mainly reserved for animals who are nocturnal, deep burrowing, or live in large oceans. Because they live or hunt in areas of minimal light or complete darkness, they have evolved to rely less on sight, using sound to create a mental image of their surroundings instead. The animals' brains, which have evolved to understand these echoes, pick up on specific sound features like pitch, volume, and direction to navigate their surroundings or find prey.

Following a similar concept, some people who are blind have been able to train themselves to use echolocation by clicking their tongues.

How Does Echolocation Work?

To use echolocation, an animal must first create some kind of sound pulse. Typically, the sounds consist of high-pitched or ultrasonic squeaks or clicks. Then, they listen back for the echoes from the emitted sound waves bouncing off objects within their environment.

Bats and other animals that use echolocation are specially tuned to the properties of these echos. If the sound comes back quickly, the animal knows the object is closer; if the sound is more intense, it knows the object is bigger. Even the echo’s pitch helps the animal map its surroundings. An object in motion towards them creates a higher pitch, and objects moving in the opposite direction result in a lower-pitched returning echo.

Studies on echolocation signals have found genetic similarities between species that use echolocation. Specifically, orcas and bats, who’ve shared specific changes in a set of 18 genes connected to cochlear ganglion development (the group of neuron cells responsible for transmitting information from the ear to the brain).

Echolocation isn’t just reserved for nature anymore, either. Modern technologies have borrowed the concept for systems like sonar used for submarines to navigate, and ultrasound used in medicine to display images of the body.

Animal Echolocation

The same way that humans can see through the reflection of light, echolocating animals can “see” through the reflection of sound. The throat of a bat has particular muscles that allow it to emit ultrasonic sounds, while its ears have unique folds that make them extremely sensitive to the direction of sounds. While hunting at night, bats let out a series of clicks and squeaks that are sometimes so high-pitched that they are undetectable to the human ear . When the sound reaches an object, it bounces back, creating an echo and informing the bat of its surroundings. This helps the bat, for example, catch an insect in mid-flight.

Studies on bat social communication show that bats use echolocation to respond to certain social situations and distinguish between sexes or individuals, as well. Wild male bats sometimes discriminate approaching bats based solely on their echolocation calls, producing aggressive vocalizations towards other males and courtship vocalizations after hearing female echolocation calls.

Toothed whales, like dolphins and sperm whales, use echolocation to navigate the dark, murky waters deep beneath the ocean’s surface. Echolocating dolphins and whales push ultrasonic clicks through their nasal passages, sending the sounds into the marine environment to locate and distinguish objects from near or far distances.

The sperm whale’s head, one of the largest anatomical structures found in the animal kingdom, is filled with spermaceti (a waxy material) that helps sound waves bounce off the massive plate in its skull. The force focuses the sound waves into a narrow beam to allow for more accurate echolocation even over ranges of up to 60 kilometers. Beluga whales use the squishy round part of their foreheads (called a “melon”) to echolocate, focusing signals similarly to sperm whales.

Human Echolocation

Echolocation is most commonly associated with non-human animals like bats and dolphins, but some people have also mastered the skill. Even though they aren’t capable of hearing the high-pitched ultrasound that bats use for echolocation, some people who are blind have taught themselves to use noises and listen to the returning echoes to make better sense of their surroundings. Experiments in human echolocation have found that those who train in “human sonar” may present better performance and target detection if they make emissions with higher spectral frequencies. Others have discovered that human echolocation actually activates the visual brain.

Perhaps the most famous human echolocator is Daniel Kish , president of World Access for the Blind and an expert in human echolocation. Kish, who has been blind since he was 13 months old, uses mouth clicking sounds to navigate, listening to echoes as they reflect from surfaces and objects around him. He travels the world teaching other people to use sonar and has been instrumental in raising awareness for human echolocation and inspiring attention among the scientific community. In an interview with Smithsonian Magazine , Kish described his unique experience with echolocation:

It’s flashes. You do get a continuous sort of vision, the way you might if you used flashes to light up a darkened scene. It comes into clarity and focus with every flash, a kind of three-dimensional fuzzy geometry. It is in 3D, it has a 3D perspective, and it is a sense of space and spatial relationships. You have a depth of structure, and you have position and dimension. You also have a pretty strong sense of density and texture, that are sort of like the color, if you will, of flash sonar.

Marcovitz, Amir et al. " A Functional Enrichment Test For Molecular Convergent Evolution Finds A Clear Protein-Coding Signal In Echolocating Bats And Whales ." Proceedings Of The National Academy Of Sciences , vol. 116, no. 42, 2019, pp. 21094-21103., doi:10.1073/pnas.1818532116

Knörnschild, Mirjam et al. " Bat Echolocation Calls Facilitate Social Communication ." Proceedings Of The Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , vol. 279, no. 1748, 2012, pp. 4827-4835., doi:10.1098/rspb.2012.1995

Norman, L. J., and L. Thaler. " Human Echolocation For Target Detection Is More Accurate With Emissions Containing Higher Spectral Frequencies, And This Is Explained By Echo Intensity ." I-Perception , vol. 9, no. 3, 2018, doi:10.1177/2041669518776984

Thaler, Lore et al. " Neural Correlates Of Natural Human Echolocation In Early And Late Blind Echolocation Experts ." Plos ONE , vol. 6, no. 5, 2011, p. e20162., doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020162

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Humans Can Learn to Echolocate

Blind humans have been known to use echolocation to "see" their environment, but even sighted people can learn the skill, a new study finds.

Study participants learned to echolocate, or glean information about surroundings by bouncing sound waves off surfaces, in a virtual environment. Although the human brain normally suppresses echoes, it perceives them when a person uses echolocation, the research showed.

Bats , dolphins and porpoises use echolocation to navigate and hunt. In humans, reports of blind people using sounds to orient themselves go back to the 18th century, but the phenomenon has been less well-studied in sighted people.

"This study found that sighted people can echolocate, in good agreement with past studies," said neuroscientist Lore Thaler of Durham University in England, who was not involved with the research. [ 7 Amazing Superhuman Feats ]

But in contrast to previous studies, the current one looked at echo suppression — the phenomenon by which the human brain suppresses the sound of echoes so the original sound can be heard clearly. This ability is very useful, Thaler told LiveScience. "Otherwise, speech would be virtually unintelligible," she said.

In the study, sighted participants wore a headset with a microphone. In a "listening" experiment, the participants heard sounds and simulated echoes through the headphones, and they had to discriminate between the positions of the sound source (the leading sound) and its echo (the lagging sound).

In an "echolocation" experiment, participants made the sounds, such as mouth or tongue clicks, themselves. A computer processor simulated the echoes these sounds would produce when hitting a reflector, and played them back through the headset.

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Sighted individuals learned to perceive the positions of reflectors in the echolocation experiment just as well as they perceived the position of the sound source in the listening experiment, the researchers showed.

They found that in the listening experiment, perception of the leading sound caused the lagging sound (the echo) to be suppressed in the brain. But in the echolocation experiment, both leading and lagging sounds were perceived equally well, suggesting the echo suppression diminished during echolocation.

So if humans can echolocate, why don't they do it all the time? "Unless you run around in dark environments or blindfolded, echolocation is just not needed," Thaler said. While the study shows that sighted person can learn the skill, blind people are typically better at it, she said.

Individuals who lack sight may be more attuned to the auditory environment. Or brain resources typically used for sight may be directed toward hearing, Thaler said.

Still, "I think [the new study] is an interesting piece of evidence," Thaler said, adding that she would be curious to see how blind people would perform in the experiment.

The findings were detailed Tuesday (Aug. 27) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter   and Google+ . Follow us @livescience , Facebook   & Google+ . Original article on  LiveScience .

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The author who listens to the sound of the cosmos

Three books explore the wonders of sound on land, in the sea, and in our heads.

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In 1983, while on a field recording assignment in Kenya, the musician and soundscape ecologist Bernie Krause noticed something remarkable. Lying in his tent late one night, listening to the calls of hyenas, tree frogs, elephants, and insects in the surrounding old-growth forest, Krause heard what seemed to be a kind of collective orchestra. Rather than a chaotic cacophony of nighttime noises, it was as if each animal was singing within a defined acoustic bandwidth, like living instruments in a larger sylvan ensemble. 

Unsure of whether this structured musicality was real or the invention of an exhausted mind, Krause analyzed his soundscape recordings on a spectrogram when he returned home. Sure enough, the insects occupied one frequency niche, the frogs another, and the mammals a completely separate one. Each group had claimed a unique part of the larger sonic spectrum, a fact that not only made communication easier, Krause surmised, but also helped convey important information about the health and history of the ecosystem.

Krause describes his “niche hypothesis” in the 2012 book The Great Animal Orchestra , dubbing these symphonic soundscapes the “biophony”—his term for all the sounds generated by nonhuman organisms in a specific biome. Along with his colleague Stuart Gage from Michigan State University, he also coins two more terms—“anthropophony” and “geophony”—to describe sounds associated with humanity (think music, language, traffic jams, jetliners) and those originating from Earth’s natural processes (wind, waves, volcanoes, and thunder).

In A Book of Noises: Notes on the Auraculous , the Oxford-based writer and journalist Caspar Henderson makes an addition to Krause’s soundscape triumvirate: the “cosmophony,” or the sounds of the cosmos. Together, these four categories serve as the basis for a brief but fascinating tour through the nature of sound and music with 48 stops (in the form of short essays) that explore everything from human earworms to whale earwax.

We start, appropriately enough, with a bang. Sound, Henderson explains, is a pressure wave in a medium. The denser the medium, the faster it travels. For hundreds of thousands of years after the Big Bang, the universe was so dense that it trapped light but allowed sound to pass through it freely. As the primordial plasma of this infant universe cooled and expansion continued, matter collected along the ripples of these cosmic waves, which eventually became the loci for galaxies like our own. “The universe we see today is an echo of those early years,” Henderson writes, “and the waves help us measure [its] size.” 

The Big Bang may seem like a logical place to start a journey into sound, but cosmophony is actually an odd category to invent for a book about noise. After all, there’s not much of it in the vacuum of space. Henderson gets around this by keeping the section short and focusing more on how humans have historically thought about sound in the heavens. For example, there are two separate essays on our multicentury obsession with “the music of the spheres,” the idea that there exists a kind of ethereal harmony produced by the movements of heavenly objects.

Since matter matters when it comes to sound—there can be none of the latter without the former—we also get an otherworldly examination of what human voices would sound like on different terrestrial and gas planets in our solar system, as well as some creative efforts from musicians and scientists who have transmuted visual data from space into music and other forms of audio. These are fun and interesting forays, but it isn’t until the end of the equally short “Sounds of Earth” (geophony) section that readers start to get a sense of the “auraculousness”—ear-related wonder—Henderson references in the subtitle.

Judging by the quantity and variety of entries in the “biophony” and “anthropophony” sections, you get the impression Henderson himself might be more attuned to these particular wonders as well. You really can’t blame him. 

The sheer number of fascinating ways that sound is employed across the human and nonhuman animal kingdom is mind-boggling, and it’s in these final two sections of the book that Henderson’s prose and curatorial prowess really start to shine—or should I say sing . 

We learn, for example, about female frogs that have devised their own biological noise-canceling system to tune out the male croaks of other species; crickets that amplify their chirps by “chewing a hole in a leaf, sticking their heads through it, and using it as a megaphone”; elephants that listen and communicate with each other seismically; plants that react to the buzz of bees by increasing the concentration of sugar in their flowers’ nectar; and moths with tiny bumps on their exoskeletons that jam the high-frequency echolocation pulses bats use to hunt them. 

Henderson has a knack for crisp characterization (“Singing came from winging”) and vivid, playful descriptions (“Through [the cochlea], the booming and buzzing confusion of the world, all its voices and music, passes into the three pounds of wobbly blancmange inside the nutshell numbskulls that are our kingdoms of infinite space”). He also excels at injecting a sense of wonder into aspects of sound that many of us take for granted. 

It turns out that sound is not just a great way to communicate and navigate underwater—it may be the best way.

In an essay about its power to heal, he marvels at ultrasound’s twin uses as a medical treatment and a method of examination. In addition to its kidney-stone-blasting and tumor-ablating powers, sound, Henderson says, can also be a literal window into our bodies. “It is, truly, an astonishing thing that our first glimpse of the greatest wonder and trial of our lives, parenthood, comes in the form of a fuzzy black and white smudge made from sound.”

While you can certainly quibble with some of the topical choices and their treatment in A Book of Noises , what you can’t argue with is the clear sense of awe that permeates almost every page. It’s an infectious and edifying kind of energy. So much so that by the time Henderson wraps up the book’s final essay, on silence, all you want to do is immerse yourself in more noise.

Singing in the key of sea

For the multiple generations who grew up watching his Academy Award–­winning 1956 documentary film, The Silent World , Jacques-Yves Cousteau’s mischaracterization of the ocean as a place largely devoid of sound seems to have calcified into common knowledge. The science writer Amorina Kingdon offers a thorough and convincing rebuttal of this idea in her new book, Sing Like Fish: How Sound Rules Life Under Water.

Beyond serving as a 247-page refutation of this unfortunate trope, Kingdon’s book aims to open our ears to all the marvels of underwater life by explaining how sound behaves in this watery underworld, why it’s so important to the animals that live there, and what we can learn when we start listening to them.

It turns out that sound is not just a great way to communicate and navigate underwater—it may be the best way. For one thing, it travels four and a half times faster there than it does on land. It can also go farther (across entire seas, under the right conditions) and provide critical information about everything from who wants to eat you to who wants to mate with you. 

To take advantage of the unique way sound propagates in the world’s oceans, fish rely on a variety of methods to “hear” what’s going on around them. These mechanisms range from so-called lateral lines—rows of tiny hair cells along the outside of their body that can sense small movements and vibrations in the water around them—to otoliths, dense lumps of calcium carbonate that form inside their inner ears. 

Because fish are more or less the same density as water, these denser otoliths move at a different amplitude and phase in response to vibrations passing through their body. The movement is then registered by patches of hair cells that line the chambers where otoliths are embedded, which turn the vibrations of sound into nerve impulses. The philosopher of science Peter Godfrey-Smith may have put it best: “It is not too much to say that a fish’s body is a giant pressure-sensitive ear.” 

While there are some minor topical overlaps with Henderson’s book—primarily around whale-related sound and communication—one of the more admirable attributes of Sing Like Fish is Kingdon’s willingness to focus on some of the oceans’ … let’s say, less charismatic noise-­makers. We learn about herring (“the inveterate farters of the sea”), which use their flatuosity much as a fighter jet might use countermeasures to avoid an incoming missile. When these silvery fish detect the sound of a killer whale, they’ll fire off a barrage of toots, quickly decreasing both their bodily buoyancy and their vulnerability to the location-revealing clicks of the whale hunting them. “This strategic fart shifts them deeper and makes them less reflective to sound,” writes Kingdon.  

Readers are also introduced to the plainfin midshipman , a West Coast fish with “a booming voice” and “a perpetual look of accusation.” In addition to having “a fishy case of resting bitch face,” the male midshipman also has a unique hum , which it uses to attract gravid females in the spring. That hum became the subject of various conspiracy theories in the mid-’80s, when houseboat owners in Sausalito, California, started complaining about a mysterious seasonal drone. Thanks to a hydrophone and a level-headed local aquarium director, the sound was eventually revealed to be not aliens or a secret government experiment, but simply a small, brownish-green fish looking for love.

Kingdon’s command of, and enthusiasm for, the science of underwater sound is uniformly impressive. But it’s her recounting of how and why we started listening to the oceans in the first place that’s arguably one of the book’s most fascinating topics. It’s a wide-ranging tale, one that spans “firearm-­happy Victorian-era gentleman” and “whales that sounded suspiciously like Soviet submarines.” It’s also a powerful reminder of how war and military research can both spur and stifle scientific discovery in surprising ways.  

The fact that Sing Like Fish ends up being both an exquisitely reported piece of journalism and a riveting exploration of a sense that tends to get short shrift only amplifies Kingdon’s ultimate message—that we all need to start paying more attention to the ways in which our own sounds are impinging on life underwater. As we’ve started listening more to the seas, what we’re increasingly hearing is ourselves, she writes: “Piercing sonar, thudding seismic air guns for geological imaging, bangs from pile drivers, buzzing motorboats, and shipping’s broadband growl. We make a lot of noise.”

That noise affects underwater communication, mating, migrating, and bonding in all sorts of subtle and obvious ways. And its impact is often made worse when combined with other threats, like climate change. The good news is that while noise can be a frustratingly hard thing to regulate, there are efforts underway to address our poor underwater aural etiquette. The International Maritime Organization is currently updating its ship noise guidelines for member nations. At the same time, the International Organization for Standardization is creating more guidelines for measuring underwater noise. 

“The ocean is not, and has never been, a silent place,” writes Kingdon. But to keep it filled with the right kinds of noise (i.e., the kinds that are useful to the creatures living there), we’ll have to recommit ourselves to doing two things that humans sometimes aren’t so great at: learning to listen and knowing when to shut up.   

Music to our ears (and minds)

We tend to do both (shut up and listen) when music is being played—at least if it’s the kind we like. And yet the nature of what the composer Edgard Varèse famously called “organized sound” largely remains a mystery to us. What exactly is music? What distinguishes it from other sounds? Why do we enjoy making it? Why do we prefer certain kinds? Why is it so effective at influencing our emotions and (often) our memories?  

In their recent book Every Brain Needs Music: The Neuroscience of Making and Listening to Music , Larry Sherman and Dennis Plies look inside our heads to try to find some answers to these vexing questions. Sherman is a professor of neuroscience at the Oregon Health and Science University, and Plies is a professional musician and teacher. Unfortunately, if the book reveals anything, it’s that limiting your exploration of music to one lens (neuroscience) also limits the insights you can gain into its nature. 

That’s not to say that getting a better sense of how specific patterns of vibrating air molecules get translated into feelings of joy and happiness isn’t valuable. There are some genuinely interesting explanations of what happens in our brains when we play, listen to, and compose music—supported by some truly great watercolor-­based illustrations by Susi Davis that help to clarify the text. But much of this gets bogged down in odd editorial choices (there are, for some reason, three chapters on practicing music) and conclusions that aren’t exactly earth-shattering (humans like music because it connects us). 

Every Brain Needs Music purports to be for all readers, but unless you’re a musician who’s particularly interested in the brain and its inner workings, I think most people will be far better served by A Book of Noises or other, more in-depth explorations of the importance of music to humans, like Michael Spitzer’s The Musical Human: A History of Life on Earth . 

“We have no earlids,” the late composer and naturalist R. Murray Schafer once observed. He also noted that despite this anatomical omission, we’ve become quite good at ignoring or tuning out large portions of the sonic world around us. Some of this tendency may be tied to our supposed preference for other sensory modalities. Most of us are taught from an early age that we are primarily visual creatures—that seeing is believing, that a picture is worth a thousand words. This idea is likely reinforced by a culture that also tends to focus primarily on the visual experience.

Yet while it may be true that we rely heavily on our eyes to make sense of the world, we do a profound disservice to ourselves and the rest of the natural world when we underestimate or downplay sound. Indeed, if there’s a common message that runs through all three of these books, it’s that attending to sound in all its forms isn’t just personally rewarding or edifying; it’s a part of what makes us fully human. As Bernie Krause discovered one night more than 40 years ago, once you start listening, it’s amazing what you can hear. 

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