What This Document Is
This document is a lab exercise designed for students in an English Renaissance literature course (ENG 440) at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. It uses a digital Gizmo – an interactive simulation – to explore the science of hearing, specifically focusing on how humans perceive sound frequency and volume. The lab asks students to investigate their own auditory capabilities and analyze data to create an equal-loudness curve.
Why This Document Matters
This lab is valuable for students in a humanities course because it provides a concrete, scientific grounding for understanding a fundamental aspect of human experience – how we perceive the world through sound. While seemingly unrelated to Renaissance literature, understanding the physical basis of auditory perception can enrich interpretations of poetry, drama, and music from the period. It’s used as a supplemental activity to encourage interdisciplinary thinking and a deeper appreciation for the sensory world that shaped Renaissance art and culture. This exercise is likely completed early in the course to establish a baseline understanding of perception.
Common Limitations or Challenges
This lab focuses *solely* on the physiological aspects of hearing. It does not delve into the cultural, historical, or literary significance of sound in the Renaissance. Students will still need to connect these scientific findings to the course’s core literary texts. The Gizmo relies on individual auditory perception, which can vary, and requires a quiet environment and functioning headphones for optimal results.
What This Document Provides
The full document includes:
* Vocabulary definitions related to sound (decibel, frequency, hertz, pitch, volume, etc.).
* Prior knowledge questions to activate existing understanding.
* Step-by-step instructions for using the “Hearing: Frequency and Volume” Gizmo.
* Data collection tables for recording perceived loudness at different frequencies.
* A graph for creating an equal-loudness curve.
* Analysis questions to interpret the results and consider how hearing might change with age.
This preview *does not* include the interactive Gizmo itself, the completed data tables, the generated equal-loudness curve, or the answers to the analysis questions. It provides an overview of the lab’s purpose and structure.