Students play and record the “Mary Had a Little Lamb” song using musical instruments and analyze the intensity of the sound using free audio editing and recording software. Then they use hollow Styrofoam half-spheres as acoustic mirrors (devices that reflect and focus sound), determine the radius of curvature of the mirror and calculate its focal length. Students place a microphone at the acoustic mirror focal point, re-record their songs, and compare the sound intensity on plot spectrums generated from their recordings both with and without the acoustic mirrors. A worksheet and KWL chart are provided.

Students will exploring how chaning the equation of a parabola on Desmos.com will give you similar graphs. These equations are all in vertex form and will ask students to determine the vertex of each equation. Students will all be asked to graph each of the equations in the families as well. Original worksheet created by Curt Sauer.