Students discuss and collect evidence about the sounds that whales make when they communicate.
Students create a spectrogram to model humpback whale sounds.
Students create and use spectrograms to help them process the information encoded in whale songs.
The activity below draws from the content in the page Information Processing and expands on the activity Echolocating with Dolphins. Related information on sound waves can be found in another topic, The Patterns to Transfer Information. |
The above teacher presentation is useful to show students before beginning this activity, as it explores the basics of whale communication. There are presenter notes in yellow boxes in the upper, left corner. This presentation comes from the original SEA curriculum. |
Animals use sound to send and recieve information (Fig.1).
How do animals use sound to communicate?
In this activity, you will explore how whales use sound to communicate!
Teacher Recommendations
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Spectrogram A spectrogram is an image made by graphing sounds. Time is on the x-axis in seconds and the pitch is on the y-axis. If the pitch increases, the line on the graph goes up. Volume is represented by color. As the sound gets louder, the line gets brighter in color. If the sound stops, you will have a gap in the line for that given amount of time of silence. See Figure 2 for an example whale song that changes in pitch and volume. |
Practice making sounds with different pitches and volumes.
Visit The Chrome Music Lab to experiment with using your own voice to make a spectrogram. This will help you to 'see' the sounds you are making. Try and make the spectrogram from Figure 2 above using your voice! Note: If you enjoy playing with the Chrome Music Lab, build in extra time here and keep experimenting!
Go to the NOAA Fisheries Sounds in the Ocean page to listen to the sample humpback whale song (19 sec).
Describe the sound you heard.
Listen again to the same whale song. Use the graph on your worksheet to plot the pitch of the whale song over time. Note: You may have to listen to the sound repeatedly as you are creating your spectrogram.
VOLUME | HIGHTLIGHTER COLOR |
---|---|
Quiet | |
Medium | |
Loud |
Harmonizing with HumpbacksHumpback whales are famous for their complex songs. Only the male humpbacks sing, and they only sing during the _________________ season in Hawai'i. The ______________ is usually alone in a head-down, tail-up position. If the singer is following a cow and calf pair, he is called a(n) __________________. When another whale joins in on the song, he is called a(n) ________________. Humpback whales do not have vocal cords. They produce sounds by pushing air through tubes and chambers in their ____________________ system. Scientists use ___________________ to listen to, and record, whale songs. Researchers can play the songs into a computer that creates a(n) __________________, which is a picture of each sound. Whale researchers study patterns on spectrograms to learn about why whales sing, and how they react to other whales around them. Scientists have developed some _______________ to try to explain why whales sing. Scientists also study whale songs to learn about how _________________, caused by people, affects the behavior of whales. Ship engines, military sonar, and explosions used by oil and construction companies make loud sounds under water that may cause changes in the whales’ ____________________________. *behavior *escort *mating *singer *hydrophones *noise pollution *spectrogram *joiner *respiratory *hypotheses |