Students discuss and collect evidence about the ways that marine mammals sense and respond to their environment.
Students develop an auditory model of dolphin echolocation and use it to locate a fish on a paper target.
Students investigate how dolphins use echolocation to collect and process information when they are locating prey.
The activity below draws from the content in the page Information Processing. Further investigation can be found in the activity Harmonizing with Humpbacks. Related information on sound waves can be found in another topic, The Patterns to Transfer Information. |
Animals send and receive sounds to communicate and explore their environment (Fig.1).
How is sound used to communicate information?
In this activity, you will explore how dolphins use sound and echolocation to find an object!
Teacher Recommendations:
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Safety note: make sure that your environment is safe and clear of tripping hazards. As the echo you are also acting as the lookout person to help ensure dolphin is safe!
SOUND DIRECTION | SOUND DESCRIPTION |
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Left | |
Right |
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Forward | |
Backward | |
On Target! |
TRIAL | DISTANCE TO THE CENTER OF THE TARGET | Observations |
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Trial #1 | ||
Trial #2 | ||
Trial #3 |
Activity Questions: