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First Physics 9 Sound Sculpture Showcase invites creativity
May 29, 2016
With the first year of the new Physics 9 course almost finished, the culminating project for ninth graders was to build a sound sculpture. To do so, students needed to build the sculpture based on the design thinking skills they have learned throughout the year, the knowledge from their waves and sound unit, and the requests from their user. Their clients were St. Paul Academy and Summit School’s Upper and Middle School Fine Arts teachers Marty Nash and Daryn Lowman.
Upper School Science teacher Scot Hovan specifies the reasoning behind implementing this project into the curriculum.
“This project was implemented into Physics 9 because one of the goals was to incorporate design thinking. In addition, because we have studied waves in the physics course, the sound aspect of the project was a natural fit. As our science department continues to evolve, we wanted students to experience a project like this early in their upper school experience. I wanted to provide students with an opportunity to build – some students have never used a drill or had to fasten pieces of wood together,” Hovan said.
Students were able to ask Nash and Lowman their needs and groups of ninth graders empathized their needs into an idea for their sculptures while following the design thinking process.The design thinking process consists of five concrete steps: Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test. Groups are assessed based on the process they followed and the product they created. In addition to building a functioning sculpture, students used a microphone and Logger Pro software to record the sounds their sculptures produced and identified the harmonics and frequencies.
Design thinking is aligned with [SPA’s] mission, because the problems being addressed through the design thinking process are inherently for other people. — Upper School science teacher Scot Hovan
Hovan describes the design thinking process as aligning with the SPA mission statement. He emphasizes the importance of the process and its vitality to problem solving later in students’ lives.
“Design thinking is aligned with that [SPA’s] mission, because the problems being addressed through the design thinking process are inherently for other people.The first stage in design thinking involves building empathy for the client/user, and it is the development of empathy that is the shaping of the hearts espoused by our mission. Multiple parents have visited my classroom and have commented on the importance of design thinking in their own work, so it is something students can draw upon in problem solving projects later in their SPA careers and beyond,” Hovan said.
As the chimes, drips and strums of sculptures echoed through the Redleaf Commons on May 27, so did the excitement of students.
Freshman Camilla Myers describes the experience as being enjoyable and fun. For her sound sculpture, her group used guitar strings as the median for sound and a handle to spin the sculpture so the client could create noise by dragging a wooden stick along the sides.
“It was a rigorous experience. I really got to use all the social skills that were emphasized throughout the course. I thoroughly enjoyed working with my assigned group to accomplish such a rewarding project,” Myers said.
See sound sculpture photos from Stephanie Li:
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