Hi guys,
I am currently teaching a physics lesson to a sixth Grade class. I finished off my week of acoustics study with the demonstration of thr chladni plate. This is a metal sheet that you pour salt onto, then stimulate by "playing it" with a cello bow. The salt then forms into a variety of shapes, reflecting presumably the vibrations of the sheet on one level, but on another, reflecting the beautiful nature of the Sound/Chemical ether. The form on its own, with the square Chladni plate was a six pointed star, when I had one of the kids touch the corner of the plate with their finger, I bowed it again and it turned onto an eight pointed star, and with two fingers it began to form into something else, but I couldnt get it exact, I would have needed a bigger plate.
This is what science lessons are all about, experiencing the wonder of these forms, and then next week, once they have really slept on it, I will introduce some concepts into it, why did it form, what was the underlying cause.
Lysear
Big metal plates are very Rolf Harris. :D Are the patterns called "sound mandalas"? This is what I found when I looked the term up. http://www.lightspace.com/finearts/gallery/nutcracker/nutcracker.html
perhaps, they probably have some kind of conceptual relationship. The point is, consider how beneifical this kind of demonstration is to the being of the child, to begin to truly understand the formative element of sound, they perfect geometric relationships.
Demonstration and experimentation is much better than dry theory for the sciences. I remember being told about sound mandalas/chladini plates but we never got to play with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cymatics
http://www.hyattcarter.com/path_of_sound.htm
With the right vibrations, the particles even assume organic shapes: the hexagonal cells of a honeycomb, concentric rings of tree growth, tortoise shell patterns, radiating wheel spokes, like in the canals of a jellyfish.