Study How Sounds Travel to our Ears

In this activity, we will be looking at how sound travels from the source to the ear. 

First of all, a sound is created.

For this example, the sound is going to be created by some drums. 

The drums will vibrate and create sound waves. Each wave sound will bump into the closest air particles. 

This will make the air particles vibrate and pass the vibration onto the next air particle - this is how the sound passes along. 

This picture shows the sound waves leaving the drum, and vibrating the closest air particles which are shown as the blue dots. In real life, air particles are so small we cannot see them! 

It will then vibrate to the particles by the ear - the outer ear is the part we can see and it is called the pinna. It is shaped like a funnel to help to collect the sound waves.

The sound waves will travel down the ear canal to the eardrum. The eardrum has a thin layer of tightly stretched skin that vibrates when the sound waves hit it. 

The eardrum passes the sound to the inner ear - this is called the cochlea. 

The cochlea will then change these sound waves into electrical signals and send messages to the brain by the hearing nerve. Our clever brains then tell us what we are hearing!

That is how the sound travels from the source to our ears, and this is how we hear things. 

Wow! That's quite an interesting process, isn't it?

Are you ready to have a go at some questions?  You can take another look at this introduction whenever you like by clicking on the red help button on the screen.