(Newswire.net — August 24, 2017) — For many kids, sitting at a desk all day listening to endless lectures is boring. Even if they’re interested in some of the lessons being taught, they’re often too tired to enjoy it.
Perhaps that’s because school is designed to get kids to memorize data and repeat it back with no room for opinions, ideas, or exploration outside of their desks.
Kids would be more interested in learning if they were allowed to explore life hands-on, instead of sitting in a chair all day. Physics, for example, would be fascinating if they could learn it experientially.
Here’s some advice for getting your kids interested in physics without making them feel like they’re in school:
1. Show them the beauty of cymatics
Swiss physician Hans Jenny popularized the concept of cymatics in his 1967 book titled Cymatics: The Study of Wave Phenomena. His second book, published right before his death in 1972, documented the visual effects sound had on liquids and powders. Jenny revealed, “This is not an unregulated chaos; it is a dynamic but ordered pattern.”
Jenny advocated the idea that cymatics was the description of a sound-matrix responsible for creating everything in the world, from the shape of a mountain to the petals of a flower.
Complex patterns emerge from sound vibrations
In his experiments, Jenny connected a tone generator to a metal plate covered in quartz sand. He observed that lower tones caused the sand to form simple patterns while higher tones created complex patterns. Using the tone generator supplied a precise frequency and amplitude that allowed for his experiments to be repeated in a laboratory.
Jenny also designed the Tonoscope; a device that produces the same complex patterns when someone sings or speaks into it.
Jenny wasn’t the only brilliant mind in history to notice that patterns emerged from sound vibration. Galileo noticed it as well, “Scraping a brass plate with a sharp iron chisel in order to remove some spots from it and running the chisel rather rapidly over it, I once or twice, during many strokes, heard the plate emit a rather strong and clear whistling sound: on looking at the plate more carefully I noticed a long row of fine streaks parallel and equidistant from one another.”
While running a violin bow across the edge of a glass plate covered in flour, philosopher and architect Robert Hooke saw patterns emerge in the flour. Later, Ernst Chladni repeated Hooke’s experiments by sprinkling sand on a plate and drawing a bow along the edge.
2. Show them cymatics in action
To bring in the “wow” factor, show your kids this brilliant video display of cymatics produced by Nigel Stanford. If they’re old enough to use social media, just email them the link and let them watch on their own time. It’s guaranteed to captivate their minds. When they ask you what it is, you can tell them it’s physics!
3. Perform your own experiments at home
Once your kids see the brilliant effects vibration has on matter, they’ll likely want to do experiments of their own. Here are a few cymatics experiments you can do at home that require only minimal materials.
You can repeat Chladni’s famous plate experiment with a flat sheet of metal mounted on a sturdy base. Sprinkle some sand on top of the plate and use a violin bow to stroke the edge. You’ll see the sand move around the plate and settle into various points on the plate untouched by movement.
4. Supplement their experience with DVDs
Once cymatics captures their attention, they’ll probably want to learn more. This is the perfect opportunity to introduce them to physics DVDs that will help them learn about oscillations, standing waves, resonance, and sound waves.
If your kids want to know why the sand settles in certain areas but not in others, tell them by studying physics, they’ll be able to find the answer on their own. Allow their interest to drive them forward in their learning.
The best way to get your kids involved in their own education is to spark their curiosity and make them want to learn more. When it comes to hands-on learning, experimenting with cymatics will make physics a tangible reality for your kids.