How can a sound make something move? In this unit, students develop ideas related to how sounds are produced, how they travel through media, and how they affect objects at a distance. Their investigations are motivated by trying to account for a perplexing anchoring phenomenon — a truck is playing loud music in a parking lot and the windows of a building across the parking lot visibly shake in response to the music.

OpenSciEd content is highly rated in EdReports and is aligned to NGSS standards.

How can a magnet move another object without touching it? This unit launches with a slow-motion video of a speaker as it plays music. In the previous unit, students developed a model of sound. This unit allows students to investigate the cause of a speaker’s vibration in addition to the effect.

OpenSciEd content is highly rated in EdReports and is aligned to NGSS standards.

Contains plans for at least seven 20- to 30-minute sessions about alphabet books. In addition to student objectives and standards, these instructional plans contains links to PDF handouts and links to sites used in the lessons as well as assessment and reflection activities.

Students play and record the “Mary Had a Little Lamb” song using musical instruments and analyze the intensity of the sound using free audio editing and recording software. Then they use hollow Styrofoam half-spheres as acoustic mirrors (devices that reflect and focus sound), determine the radius of curvature of the mirror and calculate its focal length. Students place a microphone at the acoustic mirror focal point, re-record their songs, and compare the sound intensity on plot spectrums generated from their recordings both with and without the acoustic mirrors. A worksheet and KWL chart are provided.

Paul is a researcher on Antarctica. The topic of his research is sounds. Identify which objects make sounds, and learn to recognize different sounds.

James lives on Antarctica and loves the unique sounds he hears there. He is curious to know how it is possible that we hear sounds. Join him to help figure this out.

In this lesson, students are introduced to audio engineers. They discover in what type of an environment audio engineers work and exactly what they do on a day-to-day basis. Students come to realize that audio engineers help produce their favorite music and movies.

Home page for a hypertext physics course on auditorium acoustics and acoustical design.

In this video, first-grade students use a variety of sound makers to make noise (e.g.; clucker, voices, and tuning fork) and look for evidence that something is vibrating to make a sound. [6:07]

Students will use a variety of objects to participate in a partner activity and communicate using light and sound waves. Resources include a video, pictures and videos of the lesson in action, and examples of student work.

Students will use tools and materials to design and build a device that uses light or sound to solve the problem of communicating over a distance. Resources included are videos of the lesson in action, a student worksheet, and an assessment rubric.

Biology 2e is designed to cover the scope and sequence requirements of a typical two-semester biology course for science majors. The text provides comprehensive coverage of foundational research and core biology concepts through an evolutionary lens. Biology includes rich features that engage students in scientific inquiry, highlight careers in the biological sciences, and offer everyday applications. The book also includes various types of practice and homework questions that help students understand—and apply—key concepts. The 2nd edition has been revised to incorporate clearer, more current, and more dynamic explanations, while maintaining the same organization as the first edition. Art and illustrations have been substantially improved, and the textbook features additional assessments and related resources.

By the end of this section, you will be able to do the following:

Describe the relationship of amplitude and frequency of a sound wave to attributes of sound
Trace the path of sound through the auditory system to the site of transduction of sound
Identify the structures of the vestibular system that respond to gravity

In this video, Paul Andersen explains how constructive and destructive interference can create interference patterns. Interference patterns can be created by all types of waves, including water, sound, and light. A classic experiment that demonstrates interference patterns is the monochromatic double slit experiment. [3:31]

This resource provides information about careers in audio/visual technology and film, including camera operators.

Students gain a deeper understanding of how sound sensors work through a hands-on design challenge involving LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT taskbots and sound sensors. Student groups each program a robot computer to use to the sound of hand claps to control the robot's movement. They learn programming skills and logic design in parallel. They experience how robots can take sensor input and use it to make decisions to move and turn, similar to the human sense of hearing. A PowerPoint® presentation and pre/post quizzes are provided.

In this lesson, students learn that sound is energy and has the ability to do work. Students discover that sound is produced by a vibration and they observe soundwaves and how they travel through mediums. They understand that sound can be absorbed, reflected or transmitted. Through associated activities, videos and a PowerPoint presentation led by the teacher, students further their exploration of sound through discussions in order to build background knowledge.

In this video segment adapted from Design Squad, a PBS TV series featuring high school contestants tackling engineering challenges, learn about the fundamentals of sound as student teams create percussive and stringed instruments for a local band. [6:52]