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Saturday
Academy
"Sound
in the Sea" is a hands-on experience with NOAA/OSU scientists
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2002 Students listening
to hydrophone at the HMSC pier in Yaquina Bay, Newport. |
Course
Title: Sound in the Sea
Dates: 5/3 and 5/10, 2003, 10am-2:30pm
Course Description: Outline
Maximum number of students: 10
Grades: 8th grade and up
Fee: $25 (includes the cost of hydrophone)
Registration:
http://oregonstate.edu/precollege/academy/registration.htm
Instructors: NOAA/OSU
Scientists
Location: PMEL NOAA building, Hatfield Marine Science
Center, Newport, OR
Map: http://www.hmsc.orst.edu/info/maps/hmscmap.gif
e-mail:
Haru
Matsumoto or Sharon
Nieukirk
Students making the
'egg
hydrophone'.
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Introduction
You
use sound to talk, listen, and enjoy music. In air, you do
these effortlessly, relying on sound for your daily activities.
But in the ocean it's a different story: Even when you're
snorkeling, the ocean is a rather quiet and monotonous place,
other than the occasional passing motor boat.
Did
you know that the ocean is actually full of "colorful"
sounds? If your ears could tune in to really low-pitched sound,
you would realize that the ocean is full of sounds. What's
out there? Sounds made by many species of marine mammals,
as well as underwater earthquakes happening many miles away.
You can hear these sounds using only an underwater microphone,
also known as a hydrophone. By playing back sounds recorded
underwater and analyzing them on a computer, you can discover
how to locate earthquakes and how to identify different species
of whales. You will learn that the ocean is full of sounds,
from roaring earthquakes of the mid-Atlantic Ridge to the
calls of migrating blue whales in the south Pacific.
In
the "Sound in the Sea" class, scientists at NOAA
introduce you to the concepts of sound waves, frequency, and
the spectrogram. Engineers will teach you a brief history
of SONAR, the idea of the piezo-electric effect that underlies
the design of hydrophones, and a quick Electronics 101. Then
you will learn how to make a simple hydrophone. Using rubber
glue and a plastic eggshell, you'll make your own hydrophone.
In the second week, you'll test your hydrophones at the OSU
pier. Listening to the hand-made hydrophone is fun, but the
computer software we will show you makes sound recording and
analysis much easier. So if you have a laptop, do bring it
with you. We will help you to install a sound analysis program
that OSU scientists have developed.
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