This week in Science, class year 4 have been exploring the fascinating world of sound! We’ve been learning how sound travels, how we hear it and what makes some animals better at hearing than others. To help us understand this better, we made ear cones — special devices that let us test how well different “ears” pick up sound. It was a fun activity which we loved!!
In one activity, we compared how people hear with smaller cones versus larger cones. We discovered that larger cones seem to help pick up quieter sounds from further away. This led us to a question: Do animals with bigger ears hear better? The answer is yes — in many cases, animals that have big ears or large outer ear structures can detect quieter noises and pick up sounds over longer distances.
Did you know that one of the animals with the best hearing is the barn owl? They can hear sounds as quiet as –10 decibels (much quieter than we can!), and they’re able to locate the smallest rustle from prey under leaves in pitch darkness.
