Unit Summary
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.
They make observations of sound sources to revisit the K–5 idea that objects vibrate when they make sounds. They figure out that patterns of differences in those vibrations are tied to differences in characteristics of the sounds being made. They gather data on how objects vibrate when making different sounds to characterize how a vibrating object’s motion is tied to the loudness and pitch of the sounds they make. Students also conduct experiments to support the idea that sound needs matter to travel through, and they will use models and simulations to explain how sound travels through matter at the particle level.
This unit builds toward the following NGSS Performance Expectations (PEs) as described in the OpenSciEd Scope & Sequence: MS-PS4-1, MS-PS4-2. The OpenSciEd units are designed for hands-on learning and therefore materials are necessary to teach the unit. These materials can be purchased as science kits or assembled using the kit material list.

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.

David explains what beat frequency means, how to find it, and solves a sample problem involving beat frequency. Created by David SantoPietro.

Students use ultrasonic sensors and LEGO© MINDSTORMS© NXT robots to emulate how bats use echolocation to detect obstacles. They measure the robot's reaction times as it senses objects at two distances and with different sensor threshold values, and again after making adjustments to optimize its effectiveness. Like engineers, they gather and graph data to analyze a given design (from the tutorial) and make modifications to the sensor placement and/or threshold values in order to improve the robot's performance (iterative design). Students see how problem solving with biomimicry design is directly related to understanding and making observations of nature.

This video segment, adapted from NOVA scienceNOW, presents basic concepts of physics behind booming sand dunes. See how surface tension affects potential and kinetic energy and how it all works together to create sound.

In this activity, students use a variety of materials to design and create headphones that absorb sound.

Students investigate sound in their environment, particularly how sounds impact their lives. At the beginning of the unit, students use online simulations to investigate the properties of sound and learn about the components of a sound wave. They identify the different sounds in their environment and place them into categories for analysis. Students complete a project where they develop a research question, collect data in the field about different sounds, and analyze their data. They use what they have learned to create a digital product that makes recommendations about teens and sound. At the end of the unit, students share their products and take an exam over the science content.

This unit plan was originally developed by the Intel® Teach program as an exemplary unit plan demonstrating some of the best attributes of teaching with technology.

In this video segment adapted from Design Squadí_í_íŹa PBS TV series featuring high school contestants tackling engineering challengesí_í_íŹlearn about the fundamentals of sound as student teams create percussive and stringed instruments for a local band.

In this activity, students will experience echolocation themselves. They actually try echolocation by wearing blindfolds while another student makes snapping noises in front of, behind, or to the side of them.

Learn about the fundamental connections between math and music, in four Acts: Rhythm, Frequency, Harmony and Fractals. Concepts presented in the video documentary are reinforced by hands-on experiments using the Google Chrome Music Lab Experiments.

In this video segment adapted from ZOOM, the cast investigates how the pitch of sound changes when they strike a variety of glasses filled with different amounts and types of liquids.

Join Tarissa and Sabrina as they measure and compare the volume of different sounds across New York City in this video from DragonflyTV.

Learn how to make waves of all different shapes by adding up sines or cosines. Make waves in space and time and measure their wavelengths and periods. See how changing the amplitudes of different harmonics changes the waves. Compare different mathematical expressions for your waves.

In this interactive activity adapted from the University of Utah's ASPIRE Lab, investigate frequency in terms of trampoline jumps, pendulum swings, and electromagnetic waves.

In this video adapted from the Encyclopedia of Physics Demonstrations, learn how a glass beaker vibrates at a specific frequency and how resonance can force it to shatter.

In this ZOOM video segment, join Hana as she learns traditional Japanese drumming with her Taiko group.

Use the Sound Grapher to create visualizations of sound and learn about the frequency, wavelength, amplitude and velocity of sound waves.

This animation from KET's distance learning physics course demonstrates the mathematical formula for a scientific law as it applies to light.

Open tube resonators of nearly identical length produce sound waves with frequencies very close together. The difference between the two frequenciesy is the beat note frequency heard when two resonators (musical intruments)are slightly out-of-tune.

Visit with Andres during fiesta time at Paracho Michoacan, Mexico's "guitar town". As Andres shows in this video segment from ZOOM, guitar music goes beyond simple sound vibrations.