Projects For Learning: Static Sound

Materials Needed:

• 3 different colors of modeling clay
• drinking straw
• fingernail scissors

Procedure:

• Soften an egg-sized piece of each color of clay by squeezing it into your hands.

• Flatten the clay pieces, and stack them on top of each other to form a block about 1 in. (2.5 cm) deep.

• Push the straw through the layers of the clay.

• Pull the tube out of the clay

• Use the scissors to cut open the straw.

• Remove the clay plug

Results:

The straw cuts a cylinder-shaped sample from the layered stack of clay.

Why?

As the straw cuts through the clay, the clay is pushed up inside the hollow tube. The captured clay is called a core sample, and it reveals what materials are layered inside the block of clay. Coring devices made of metal are used to cut throuh layers of soil just as the layers of clay were cut. The metal core sampler has a plunger that pushes the soil out so that it can be studied.