Sound Extenders
Alexander Graham BellCopyright National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/rdparty.htm
Students are introduced to communications engineers as people who enable long-range communication. In a demonstration, students discuss the tendency of sound to diminish with distance and model this phenomenon using a slinky. Alexander Graham Bell is introduced as the inventor of the telephone and a pioneer in communications engineering.
Communications engineering extends back to at least the invention of the telegraph in 1840. Yet perhaps the most famous communications engineering invention is the telephone that came a few decades later. Contemporary communications engineers are responsible for telephones and (wireless) cell phones, as well as communication via the internet.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Describe sound as a wave that diminishes in strength as it travels.
- Name the engineer that invented the telephone.
- List an impact of the telephone on people or society.