10/15/2020 Analog vs.

Digital Signals | Lesson Plan

Analog vs. Digital Signals

GRADE RANGE
6th-8th

GROUP SIZE
Entire class

ACTIVE TIME
45 minutes

TOTAL TIME
45 minutes

AREA OF SCIENCE
Computer Science

KEY CONCEPTS
Electronic communication, signals, digital, analog

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Understand how noise impacts analog and digital signals differently.

Explain how digital methods are better than analog methods for storing, copying, and transmitting information.

CREDITS
Ben Finio, PhD, Science Buddies

(https://goo.gl/wst48K)

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Overview
We hear the word "digital" all the time—digital technology, digital device, digital TV, etc. But what does it actually mean? In this
lesson plan, your students will learn how digital signals allow us to reliably transmit and store information.

NGSS Alignment
This lesson helps students prepare for these Next Generation Science Standards (http://www.nextgenscience.org/) Performance
Expectations:

MS-PS4-3. Integrate qualitative scientific and technical information to support the claim that digitized signals are a more
reliable way to encode and transmit information than analog signals.

This lesson focuses on these aspects of NGSS Three Dimensional Learning:

Science & Engineering Practices Disciplinary Core Ideas Crosscutting Concepts

Planning and Carrying out Investigations. PS4.C: Information Technologies and Science is a Human Endeavor. Advances
Collect data about the performance of a Instrumentation. Digitized signals (sent as in technology influence the progress of
proposed object, tool, process, or system wave pulses) are a more reliable way to science and science has influenced
under a range of conditions. encode and transmit information. advances in technology.

Materials

Printer paper (1 piece per student). Make sure the paper can be used for tracing (do not use heavy weight paper).
Graph paper (1 piece per student). Make sure the paper can be used for tracing (do not use heavy weight paper).
Scissors (for teacher prep work)
For the entire class: Smartphone or tablet with Google's Science Journal app, available for free on Google Play
(https://goo.gl/Vn0RU2) for Android devices (version 4.4 or newer) or from the App Store (https://click.google-analytics.com/redirect?tid=UA-

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71590276-2&url=https%3A%2F%2Fitunes.apple.com%2Fus%2Fapp%2Fscience-journal-by-

google%2Fid1251205555%3Fmt%3D8&aid=com.google.ScienceJournal&idfa=%7Bidfa%7D&cs=sciencebuddies&cm=activities&anid=admob&hash=md5) for iOS

devices (iOS 9.3 or newer).

Background Information for Teachers

This section contains a quick review for teachers of the science and concepts covered in this lesson.

Do you remember the days of cassette tapes, VCRs, and analog TVs? If so, then you probably remember fuzzy pictures and
the sound of static (Figure 1). Newer technologies like CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray, and digital TVs are seemingly devoid of these
problems—but why? This occurs because of an important difference between analog and digital signals. This section will give
an overview of what analog and digital signals are, and how they are different.

Figure 1. Static on an older analog TV (left), and a "no signal" message on a newer digital TV (right).
Continue Reading... (#)

Prep Work (15 minutes)

For each student, cut one piece of printer paper and one piece of graph paper into eighths (so each student will get 8
slips of printer paper and 8 slips of graph paper).
Make sure you are familiar with Google's Science Journal app before you show it to your students. To learn how to use
the app and how to take sensor measurements, you can review the relevant tutorials on this Science Journal tutorial
page (http://www.sciencebuddies.org/blog/science-journal-app). You can also assign individual tutorials to your students before class.

Additional Background
Analog vs. Digital (https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/analog-vs-digital), SparkFun Electronics
Getting Started with Science Journal (https://makingscience.withgoogle.com/science-journal/activities/activity-getting-started?lang=en), Google
Making & Science
Getting Started with Sound (https://makingscience.withgoogle.com/science-journal/activities?lang=en), Google Making & Science

Lesson Flow
Engage (#engage) ➙ Explore (#explore) ➙ Reflect (#reflect) ➙ Assess (#assess) ➙ Make Career Connections (#career) ➙ Variations
(#variations)

Engage (20 minutes)

1. Pass out eight slips of printer paper and eight slips of graph paper to each student.

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2. Arrange students in groups of 4–8.

3. Tell everyone to make a simple drawing (a shape, a smiley face, a stick figure, a letter, etc.) on one piece of printer
paper.
a. The drawing should only include lines (no shading) and they should be able to finish it in less than 30 seconds.
Make sure they press firmly so the lines are dark, because others will need to trace them.
b. Everyone should write his or her name and the number "1" in the corner of the drawing.
4. Each student should pass his or her drawing to the next person in the group (decide on an order so everyone passes the
drawings in the same direction).
5. The next person should make a copy of the drawing by tracing it onto a new piece of printer paper. Write the number "2"
and the original student's name in the corner of the paper.
6. Pass the copy (not the original) on to the next student, who will make another copy and number it accordingly. Repeat
this process until there are eight versions of each drawing (the original plus seven copies labeled 2–8).
7. Return all copies of each drawing to the original student. Have students arrange their copies in order.

What do you notice about each subsequent copy of your drawing? Compare the last drawing to the initial
drawing—how different are they?
You should see that there are slight changes in each copy of the drawing. These changes accumulate over
time, so the final drawing may look very different from the initial drawing (see Figure 7 for an example).

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Figure 7. Eight copies of the letter "B," drawn freehand on printer paper. Notice how small changes in each copy
accumulate, so the last copy looks noticeably different from the initial version.
8. Now, repeat steps 1–7 with graph paper. This time, instead of drawing lines on the paper, students should make
drawings by filling in squares on the paper. Note: it will take too long if they fill in each square completely. They should fill
in each square enough that, when tracing, you can easily tell if a square is "filled" or "not filled." You can do this by
drawing a dark circle or "X" in each square.

What do you notice about each copy of the drawing this time? How does the last drawing compare to the first
drawing?
You should see that this time, each copy of the drawing is identical (see Figure 8 for an example). Note: it is
important to clarify that by "identical" we mean that the squares that are filled in remain the same, not whether
the shape of each pencil/ink blob inside each square is exactly the same.

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Figure 8. Eight copies of the letter "B," drawn by filling in squares on graph paper. Notice how each copy is identical (a
filled-in square never changes to a blank square, and vice versa), so the final copy is the same as the original copy.

Which method do you think would be better for storing and copying information?

The second method is better because each copy of the drawing is identical. It is very difficult to "accidentally"
change a filled-in square to a blank square or vice versa when tracing on graph paper. However, when tracing
on printer paper, your pencil tip can move continuously, resulting in small errors that accumulate with each new
copy.

9. Explain that the first method the students tried was analog, meaning the positions of their pencils could vary
continuously. The second method they tried was digital, meaning there were a fixed number of squares they could fill in
on the paper. Since the invention of modern electronic communication (telephone, radio, television, internet, etc.), we
have used both analog and digital methods to send information as signals, or a way to send information from one place
to another. Electronic signals are usually sent through wires (like the cables connecting a computer to a monitor, or a
game console to a TV) or wirelessly through the air (like the internet connection to a smartphone or tablet). Whenever
you push a button on a game controller, download a song, or send a text message, you are using electronic signals. In

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the rest of the lesson, they will use an app on a phone to compare sending digital and analog signals across the
classroom.

Explore (20 minutes)

1. Introduce Google's Science Journal app to your students, specifically the microphone. Alternatively, you can assign the
relevant tutorials on this Science Journal tutorial page (http://www.sciencebuddies.org/blog/science-journal-app) to them before class.
Open the microphone sensor and walk around to show students how the decibel level changes as people talk and make
different noises (e.g. dropping a book, tapping a pencil, etc.).
2. Explain that instead of drawing on paper, they will now make analog and digital signals using graphs in Science Journal.
The x-axis of the graph will be time, and the y-axis will be sound level in decibels. Remind students that an analog signal
can vary continuously, whereas a digital signal can only have a certain number of values (it the simplest case, just two
values: either "high" or "low").
3. Ask the whole class to be as quiet as possible (sit still, no talking, etc.).
a. See if a single student can generate an analog signal on the phone by humming or yelling while changing the
volume of his or her voice (e.g. "mmmmmmMMMmmmmmmmmmMMMmmmmmm"). Make a recording of the signal
and show the graph to your students.
b. Ask another student to generate a digital signal by making a sound to represent "high" and no sound to represent
"low" (e.g. "AAAHHH" for high). Repeat the sound a few times, making each sound (or lack of sound) last about
one second. Make a recording of the signal and show the graph to your students.
c. Repeat steps 3.a–3.b a few more times, until about half the class has had a chance to try generating at least one
signal (the other half of the class will get to try in the next step). Walk around the class with the phone and stand
near each student when you take a recording. Optionally, you can rename each recording in Science Journal with
the student's name.
d. Figure 9 shows two example signals. You should see that the analog signal varies continually, while the digital
signal looks more "square." Note that technically, the digital signal in Figure 9 does not have exactly two values,
like Figure 4 in the Teacher Background (#teacherprep) section, and your students might notice this. The value can still
fluctuate slightly. However, remember that with digital signals we only care if we can tell whether the value is high
or low, and not the exact value (just like with the graph paper, how we only cared if we could tell whether or not a
square was filled in, and not exactly how it was filled in).

Figure 9. An example analog signal (left) and a digital signal (right).

4. Now, tell the class they do not have to be completely quiet. They can talk and move around at their desks, using
reasonable indoor voices and motions (no yelling, jumping, throwing things, etc.).
a. Repeat steps 3.a–3.c.

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b. Figure 10 shows two example graphs. You should see that the noise affects the lower values on both graphs. For
the analog signal, this means it is impossible to know the true value of the signal if it is below about 40 dB,
because it gets "lost in the noise." For the digital signal, even though the "low" values are very noisy, you can still
clearly tell whether the signal is high (above about 60 dB) or low (below about 50 dB). Your graphs may look
different depending on the noise levels in your classroom, but the concept remains the same. You may also see
some distortion of the higher values if someone yells or makes a particularly loud noise.

Figure 10. Analog (left) and digital (right) signals with background noise added. Both signals were intended to look like the ones
from Figure 9.

How do our graphs compare in the "quiet" classroom vs. the "noisy" classroom?

You should see that the graphs recorded in the quiet classroom look much "cleaner" (the lines are smoother), whereas
the graphs recorded in the noisy classroom are much messier (the lines are spiky and jagged in places, especially for
lower y-axis values on the graph).

5. Explain that we just did a demonstration to see how analog and digital sound signals are affected by noise (the kind we
can hear). Electronic signals (the kind transmitted through wires or wirelessly through the air) can also be affected by
electronic noise, which we cannot hear. For example, noise can be introduced by other nearby electronic devices, or
when transmitting signals over very long distances. We can do our best to eliminate sources of noise, but we can never
completely get rid of it.

Reflect (5 minutes)
Which method do you think would be better for sending information electronically, analog or digital? Why?

Digital signals are better for sending information electronically, because they are not affected as easily by noise. We
saw that background noise really messed up the graph of our analog signal. This means that if we were trying to send
information using an electronic signal (like text, music, or pictures), the information could be changed, corrupted, or
lost. Even though parts of our digital signal graph did look "noisy," we could still tell whether the signal was high or low.
That means that if we send information digitally, it is more likely to arrive at the destination unchanged.

Older technologies that your parents and grandparents used, like VCRs and cassette tapes, used analog signals. Why
would people want to switch over to newer, digital technology?
The newer technology can more reliably send and store information. This is useful for consumers (listening to songs,
watching movies, etc.) and also for scientists as it allows us to develop more accurate scientific instruments.

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Assess
You can use this quiz to assess student learning after the activity:

Online quiz (http://www.sciencebuddies.org/teacher-resources/lesson-plans/gcquiz-analog-digital), assignable in Google Classroom

Quiz (pdf) (http://www.sciencebuddies.org/teacher-resources/lesson-plans/quiz-analog-digital.pdf) and answer key (PDF)
(http://www.sciencebuddies.org/teacher-resources/lesson-plans/answer-analog-digital.pdf)

Make Career Connections

Discussing or reading about these careers can help students make important connections between the in-class lesson and
STEM job opportunities in the real world.

(http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-engineering-careers/engineering/electrical-electronics-engineer) Electrical &

Electronics Engineer (http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-engineering-careers/engineering/electrical-electronics-
engineer) Electrical engineers design all the electronic devices we use every day, like
phones, computers, and game consoles. All of these devices record, store, and transmit
information using both analog and digital methods. They have to carefully consider how
noise will affect all this information.

(http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-engineering-careers/engineering/radio-frequency-engineer) Radio Frequency

Engineer (http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-engineering-careers/engineering/radio-frequency-engineer) Radio
frequency engineers are specialized types of electrical engineers who focus on wirelessly
transmitted signals (e.g. AM/FM radio, Bluetooth, 4G, Wi-Fi).

Lesson Plan Variations

How does distance affect the quality of a signal, and how the signal is impacted by noise? Instead of walking around the
classroom to take recordings from each student, try staying at your desk. How do the results change with students who
are close to you vs. those at the back of the room?
Try this project with the (blog-light-sensor)light sensor instead of the microphone. Use a flashlight to send the signal. To send
an analog signal, change how you aim the light (aim it directly at the phone for full brightness, and shift the beam to the
side to decrease the brightness). To send a digital signal, aim the flashlight directly at the phone and click it on and off.
How is this method of transmitting information affected by noise? For example, what happens if you turn the lights in the
classroom on and off, open or close window blinds, or walk between the flashlight and the phone?
In this lesson, you looked at graphs of analog and digital signals qualitatively, but you did not try to send any actual
"information." Try sending simple information (like a single number) using both analog and digital signals. For example,
for an analog signal, try sending a value (the y-axis of the graph) of exactly 42 dB using sound. To make it easier to send
analog signals, you can use a tone generator (http://onlinetonegenerator.com/) app or website. It is hard to keep your voice at
exactly the same volume when humming or singing, but much easier to adjust the volume of a computer speaker when
playing a constant tone. Then, try to send the binary (https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/binary) equivalent (101010) using a digital
signal. Which method makes it easier to send the exact number?

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