Science at the Park

We're hanging out at the park (or, as my red state friends might call it, "the socialized play space.") when Joel notices that there is an echo near the racquetball courts. "Why does it do that?" he asks. If this were a classroom, I might take draw wavelengths or send them over to a website. But it's not a classroom. It's the park, where learning is totally untested and we have all the time in the world. We move to the edge of the court and listen again, then step into the court and notice the difference. Brenna runs to the middle of the court and tests her "hello, hello, hello" aiming in different directions. Micah stands at the edge of the second court and yells, "It's echoing in two places." "I didn't hear your echo," Joel yells back. And so it begins. The questions. Why does it echo in some places instead of others? Why do the echoes change? Does volume make a difference? Bass? Distance? Would the shape of what you speak into change the sound of the echo? Most of the questions are left unanswered . . . for now. We may take a few bowls and test volumes on shapes and textures. Joel has a theory about sound, that it is "stuff" that can be absorbed, blocked and bounced. He still doesn't know about waves. I didn't front load the vocabulary and I don't intend to have him write a lab report. At the park, I get to observe learning instead of measure it.