Curated OER
Magnetic Discovery Bottle
Students examine how to conduct simple investigations and use simple equipment to gather data. In this magnet instructional activity students decide what types of objects are attracted to magnets.
Curated OER
What Shape Is It?
Students predict the shape of an unknown object by bouncing a ball on it. In this physics lesson, students relate this activity to how dolphins use echo-location to navigate. They analyze their lab result and discuss findings.
Curated OER
Sensation and Perception
In this psychology worksheet, students complete a 5 short answer quiz on sensation and perception. They explain how the five body senses are used to collect information about the environment.
Curated OER
The Rumblin' Road
Students determine the distance to a lightning strike. They complete a number of examples that determine the distance to a thunderstorm or lightning strike. They focus on safety during a thunderstorm.
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Communicating With Light and Sound: Fire!
Sound the alarm! Fire alarms and fire trucks are perfect examples of communicating with light and sound. Students will begin to understand the engineering principles behind why fire alarms and fire engines use both light and sound to...
Utah State Office of Education
Utah Science: Properties and Behaviors of Heat, Light and Sound
How can scientists lump heat, light and sound together when investigating properties and behaviors? This learning module will address that question through a series of activities.
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Properties of Waves
In this direct instruction lesson, learners draw sketches in their science notebooks in order to make sense of wave properties. Resources include a slideshow presentation on the properties of waves and multiple examples of student work.
BBC
Bbc: Gcse Bitesize: Why Do Scientists Think That Light and Sound Are Waves?
Light travels as transverse waves and can travel through a vacuum. Sound travels as longitudinal waves and needs to travel through a solid, liquid or gas. Read about the properties of light and of sound, and learn the differences between...
Scholastic
Scholastic: Study Jams! Science: Energy, Light and Sound: Sound
A video and a short quiz on how sound travels in waves, its properties, and how to measure it.
Scholastic
Scholastic: Study Jams! Science: Energy, Light and Sound: Light
A video and a short quiz on the basic concepts and vocabulary for understanding light energy.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Light & Sound, Light Reflection Relay
In this exploration, students will investigate how light reflects off smooth surfaces, learn about angles of reflection, and apply that knowledge in a relay experiment.
Creative Science Centre
Creative Science Centre: Mini Light Beam Receiver
A very simple device to convert light into sound can be made by wiring a solar cell directly to headphones (or an earpiece). The solar cell converts light into electricity and the headphones convert electricity into sound. The limitation...
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Waves Performance Assessment Part 1
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.
Better Lesson
Better Lesson: Waves Performance Assessment Part 2
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 instructional activity in action, a student...
University of Colorado
University of Colorado: Ph Et Interactive Simulations: Wave Interference
Make waves with a dripping faucet, audio speaker, or laser. Add a second source or a pair of slits to create an interference pattern.
PBS
Pbs Learning Media: What Is a Wave?
This interactive activity adapted from the University of Utah's ASPIRE Lab provides an overview of the characteristics and properties of various types of waves, including light waves, sound waves, and water waves.
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: How Does the Intensity of Light Change With Distance?
How far would you have to travel so that the light of the full sun would provide "daylight" no brighter than twilight on Earth? This project describes a method to verify the inverse square law: how light, sound, electrical signals, and...
Science Buddies
Science Buddies: How Does Color Affect Heating by Absorption of Light?
Light is an example of an electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetic waves can travel through the vacuum of interstellar space. They do not depend on an external medium-unlike a mechanical wave such as a sound wave which must travel through...
TeachEngineering
Teach Engineering: Sound and Light
The Sound and Light unit provides students with an understanding of sound and light waves through the theme of the "Sunken Treasure," a continuous story line throughout the lessons. In Lessons 1-5, students learn about sound, and in...
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Wave Speed Calculations
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Students investigate and analyze characteristics of waves, including velocity, and calculate the relationship between wave speed, frequency, and wavelength.
Creative Science Centre
Creative Science Centre: A Voice on a Sunbeam
Here is described a simple process to 'put a voice on a sunbeam' and transmit it over a distance. It is a fascinating example of amplitude modulation of light using sound vibrations. It then describes how the modulated light is detected...
Physics Classroom
The Physics Classroom: Waves, Sound and Light: Longitudinal Pulse
The animation portrays a medium as a series of particles connected by springs. In this type of longitudinal wave the particles of the medium vibrate in a direction parallel to the direction of energy transport.
Georgia State University
Georgia State University: Hyper Physics: Wave Motion
Two wave graphs depicting a sine wave and relating the various characteristics (wavelength, amplitude, frequency, and period) of a wave to each other. The site includes an interactive JavaScript form in which the visitor enters one...
University of Colorado
University of Colorado: Ph Et Interactive Simulations: Wave Interference
Conduct virtual experiments with water, sound, and light waves to determine the sine wave and patterns created in each.