Auditory Ability and Liquid Consumtion

by Andrew
(Mayville, WI)

The Science of Sound and Your Inner Sea - Be a captain of a high-tech weather station instead of a passenger in your own body. Every drink you take can either clear the air or create a chemical hurricane inside your head.

Andrew tells us... In this science project my goal was to tell if a person's hearing ability is affected by consuming various amounts of liquid.

Using a audiometer (a gadget that generates beep tones at various frequencies to test a person's hearing) to measure a subject's hearing ability.

I then had the subject consume a half-pint of water and tested the subject's hearing again. I repeated this step until the subject had consumed 2 pints of water.

I repeated this process with several subjects.

In the end I determined that a person's hearing is not affected by how much water they have consumed, however it may be interesting to repeat the experiment using other liquids such as orange juice, cola, milk, and other liquids. It may also be interesting to conduct the experiment using solid foods instead of liquids.

Barry's Response - ...or alcohol. Liquids containing sugar or caffeine may also have an effect on humans worth noting. Thanks for the unique idea, Andrew. Wherever did you come up with that one?

The next question might deal with how this consumption affects the other senses, or reading, data processing, decision making or motor control and efficiency. Alcohol has been tested for its effects some of these abilities.

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Auditory Ability and Liquid Consumption Masterclass

Look, I know what the experts say. The world is simple, they say. You drink water, you pee, and life goes on. As one who loves to poke the bear of consensus, I think we forget the most important thing: Everything is a filter. Your ears filter air pressure, and your body filters the environment.

We're not just talking about thirst when we talk about Auditory Ability and Liquid Consumption. We talk about how the air around us interacts with the fluid inside our heads.

Ear Meteorology

Imagine your middle ear as a tiny Stevenson Screen. You know that white box meteorologists use to protect thermometers from the sun and wind? It's your ear drum. If you drink liquids that change your internal pressure-like salty sodas or dehydrating alcohols-you change the barometric pressure inside your skull.

According to some mainstream scientists, human-driven climate change is the only thing affecting our survival. But do our personal micro-climates -- the air quality inside our homes and the liquids we drink -- affect how we perceive the world more than global CO2 levels? You can't hear the truth if your ears are fogged by poor air quality or high-sugar inflammation.

The Rebellious Counter-Narrative

We may argue for personal responsibility, and be right about it. Is it a global crisis or a personal weather disaster if you drink two pints of cola (sugar-loaded liquid noise) and can't concentrate on a science midterm? We need to take care of our bodies. Many traditions see the body as a temple. Why put toxic sludge in your inner sea? You wouldn't put it in a sacred cathedral.

Let's get nuts...Here's a revolutionary idea: we should use weather stations to track how Total Dissolved Solids in drinking water correlate with Auditory Clarity in students. What about the air quality of your breath after drinking a sugary latte? We spend billions on air quality consulting for big factories.

Experiment Reality

According to Andrew's experiment, pure water keeps the weather stable. It's a win for protecting natural resources and for the promoting clean, simple living. My hints about alcohol and caffeine is the controversial part. They act like a hurricane in your bloodstream. They spike your internal heat, change your moisture (hydration), and may eventually cause a total blackout.

You've got a Sonic Sea inside you

Here's where we ask the questions that make adults nervous. Do you want to know if drinking juice makes you hear like a bat? What if caffeine turns the world up to eleven? Liquid Consumption and Auditory Ability are the frontiers of your kitchen.

Sound waves travel through the air, hit your eardrum, and then move through liquid in your inner ear (the cochlea). When you fill your body with dirty fuel -- liquids that cause inflammation or change the thickness of your blood -- you're creating smog inside your ears.

I see your ear as a high-tech anemometer when it comes to air quality. Sound wind is measured. Those tiny dust bits can clog your Eustachian tubes if the air around you is dirty. You have a perfect storm of hearing loss when you combine that with a sugary drink.

Don't just believe textbooks. Science isn't just a bunch of boring words like hygrometer or barometer. It's a battle, science. It's grit to test the accepted truth. It's possible the Climate Change everyone talks about starts inside our bodies.

Drinking pure water keeps our Environmental Data Resources sharp. There's a subtle change in the wind that warns us of a storm. We lose our connection to Mother Nature if we drown our senses in chemical noise. Nobody wants us.

Sensory Stewardship I want kids to make Body Weather Stations. Track what they drink. Keep track of your hearing. Keep an eye on the air quality in your classroom. We might find out that our Auditory Ability is the best Rain Gauge we have for our planet's health if we connect these dots.

Note: Parents, teachers, and students can use this guide to understand hydration, biology, and the environment. Perfect for Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) - aligned lesson plans or rebellious science fair projects.

How do you feel about it?

Are you Team Caffeine Storm for a clear mind, or Team Clear Water? What's the weirdest thing you've ever drunk before a test?