BY PATRICIA NEWMAN
One night in May of 1924, cellist Beatrice Harrison did something no one had ever done before. She convinced the BBC to broadcast a nightingale singing as she practiced her cello in her garden. Why was this so amazing? It was the first time birdsong had ever been broadcast over the airwaves. Before Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology began recording birdsong. Before the Merlin app. More than one million listeners tuned in around the world for an unprecedented share experience! But how did the BBC make it happen? The answer lies in the way radio transmits sound waves. A fascinating hands-on lesson for 10- to 12-year-olds!
Review.
Chances are you’ve already explored sound waves with your students, but in case you haven’t I suggest you try one of the following two options by way of review:
- What is Sound, Really? lesson in this educator guide (see page 7). In this lesson, your students see how a tuning fork creates sound wave ripples in water, chat through string telephones, and explore pitch and volume with rubber bands. As students gather results, create a sound wave anchor chart on a whiteboard and discuss terms such as amplitude, frequency, and wavelength.
- A previous LitLinks lesson called How Elephants Can Make Your Sound Unit ROAR! which explores how animals use sounds to communicate different messages.
Build a model.
Ask students to build a cup-and-string model. (If you’ve done this as part of the Review step, students can use the same model.) If you have more advance technology available, use a basic circuit and speaker to demonstrate how sound travels.
Guided questions:
- How does the sound travel through the string/wiring?
- What happens to words after you speak them?
Mapping the journey.
If you haven’t already read Beatrice and the Nightingale to your students, now’s the time! Focus on the pages that show Beatrice speaking to the head of the BBC and the night the engineers came to her garden with their equipment.
Ask students to draw a map that shows the journey sound waves make from Beatrice’s cello and the nightingale’s song to the listening audience. The basic science is included in the Beatrice text, but you may want to ask students to conduct a bit of research on their own to answer the following questions:
- Why was the microphone necessary and why was it hidden in the bush?
- What happened to the sound after the microphone picked it up?
- How did the wires, amplifiers, and the Harrison’s phone line help the music travel as radio waves to one million listeners?
Idea: Consider playing classical music at a low volume as the children work.
Class discussion.
Discuss how radio technology might have changed since 1924.
Discuss what radio might have meant to people in 1924 when streaming and Spotify weren’t invented.
What was the impact of Beatrice’s broadcast with the nightingale on their audience?
Write a radio show.
Ask students to think about a sound in nature that they love. An animal sound. The wind. Rain on the roof. It could be anything.
Next, ask them to write a short radio skit, drama, play, or advertisement about this nature sound. Students can work individually or with a partner. They must incorporate sound vocabulary, such as volume, frequency, amplitude, etc. into their script. Encourage creativity and connection to their personal experiences with nature. (Download the Radio Script Template in this educator guide, p. 15.)
Ask students to practice reading their scripts aloud, then record them. Share the recordings.
Featured image credit: Isabelle Follath (used with permission)
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