Percussion Frogs

Why Do Frogs have different pitches?

 

What is needed

 

  • One or more percussion frogs
  • (available from Educational Innovations, www.teachersource.com)

 

 

What to Do

 

There are four different sized frogs.  To make your frog croak, hold each one by the hind legs and stroke from the base of the spiky spine up to the head with the larger end of the stick.  You will be amazed at how real it sounds.  Note the pitch of the sound.  Pitch is the difference in highness or lowness of sound.

 

What is Happening

 

Pitch depends on the frequency of vibration of the source of a sound.  In this case it is the percussion frog.  The larger wooded frogs make a lower pitched sound.  The smaller frogs make a higher pitched noise.  The smallest frog sounds incredibly like a spring peeper.

 

If an object vibrates very rapidly, the ear will receive many (sound wave) vibrations per second, and you will perceive a higher pitched sound.  The more times an object vibrates per second, the higher pitched sound it will produce.  Humans can hear between 20 and 20,000 vibrations per second.  Sounds of higher frequency can be heard by animals such as dogs, bats, dolphins, and whales.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 





Purdue University

Physics Department

Physics on the road, Hands on