Does music affect our brain power?
Purpose
The aim of the lesson was to explore aspects of How Science Works. The approach is outlined in the lesson plan which you can download here.
Lesson plan Approach
Pupils were given a handout of the slides in the presentation which you can download here. The handout had 4 slides per page and was in black & white.
PowerPoint presentation The pupils carried out two five-minute non-verbal reasoning tests, one with classical music playing, the other with contemporary music. The test questions were taken from the Athey Educational web site.
A number of controlled variables were identified, along with the independent and dependent variables. Pupils were required to predict the outcome before carrying out the test. They were then asked to suggest other variables that could have affected the results and to evaluate the reliability of their findings.
Commentary
This investigation was carried out during science week, when our theme was the science of music. Whilst there was a clear framework for the experimental design, students felt some ownership over this activity and they readily identified a number of further controls for improving the reliability. They recognised that many different factors were important, and that these factors depended upon the individual pupil to a large extent.
Playing music during the lesson was a novelty for this very lively Y7 group and this helped to focus their attention. The prospect of combining results from across the year group was also motivating.
Last updated: 31 May 2007
