These Human Body experiment lessons should be used with lessons about the scientific method (especially if your school does a science fair). Each experiment in the series will identify the following topics:

• Question

• Hypothesis

• Materials

• Experiment

o Procedure

o Control, independent, and dependent variable

• Results

• Conclusion

When explaining an experiment to the students, refer back to the scientific method. This will help the students understand these concepts in an applied setting. Hopefully, this will also help in their experiment idea generation or help them correctly identify their controls and variables within an already established experiment. Another option for the human body experiment series is to teach these lessons as the students learn about the human body, specifically as a follow-up to the Great River Lesson.

According to Professor Costas Karageorghis of Brunel University, music may dull pain sensations by up to 15% (through distraction). He also observed that music might put the exerciser "in the zone" by channeling the motivational power of the song (either from memories or emotion). Music may also stimulate the motor area of the brain that helps regulate the pace. The Research Institute for Sports and Exercise in Liverpool observed that cyclists worked harder when listening to faster-paced music. A collaborative study between the Chemnitz University of Technology and Ohio State University cited mood elevation as a tool for increasing pleasure and exercise awareness. Finally, according to Stupacher J et al., the musical groove modulates motor cortex excitability, making exercisers literally want to get up and move.

Much evidence suggests that music helps exercise, but what about sports performance? Are exercise and sports performance similar enough that someone could play better if they listened to music? Could music distract an athlete from concentrating on a specific task or skill? The students will experiment to see if music boosts sports performance and, if so, what type of music might work best.

Materials: 

·      As many basketball hoops as possible. More basketball hoops mean more shots per student during the experiment. In addition, if the basketball hoops can adjust in height, that would benefit smaller athletes who may not be strong enough to get the ball up to the rim.

·      The best would be to have one basketball per student, but that might not be feasible. So having a basketball for two or three students is acceptable.

o   If there are a large variety of body types within the class, having smaller basketballs for the smaller children and a full-sized basketball for the larger students is preferential.

·      Stopwatch or a phone (with stopwatch capability)

·      A music player (that can get reasonably loud)

·      Several songs from different genres of music that are upbeat and have a similar tempo (100-140 BPM). I used a selection of pop, rock, metal, country, hip-hop, folk, techno, and classical.

·      Students need a pencil and paper.

Minimum Amount of Students Needed: While this experiment could be done with only one person, that would only tell us if the individual responds to music. If we want to know if music improves performance, we need many more subjects.

Age: Upper elementary and Middle School