Ear Anatomy
For ages 7 to 12 years…
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THE EAR
Assembly Instructions
1. Cut around all the blue shaded areas. You should get a shape that contains the main drawing of the ear and three smaller ones.
2. Near the red and white numbers on the diagram, you will find 6 small lines. Ask for some help from an adult and make a little cut with a sharp knife on each of these 6 lines.
3. Bend the 5 folds backwards.
4. Put some glue on each side of the blue triangles and stick them behind the drawing so that the folding line matches with the each side of the drawing.
5. Now, when you explain each step of the hearing process, you can point to the tabs on the rectangles in their correct order.
HEARING
Sound is something very special. Try and image the air that surrounds you as being made up of millions of very tiny bubbles. When a sound is made, say by a voice, these little bubbles move just like water in a wave. This motion, even though it is invisible to you, is picked up by the eardrum.The eardrum is a little membrane about the thickness of a sheet of paper that reacts very quickly to all types of air movement (sound). It is located deep in the ear canal.
Behind the eardrum are three little bones or ossicles. They are called the malleus, the incus and the stapes. Because the malleus touches the eardrum and all 3 ossicles touch each other, every movement of the eardrum is sent to all three little bones. The third ossicle (the incus) is in contact with something called the cochlea. The cochlea is like a bag filled with water and nerve fibers. Each movement of the ossicles causes a wave in the cochlea that the nerve fibers can sense.
The nerve fibers join into the acoustic nerve and send the sound message to the brain.
