Groovy Sounds

Dive into the mystery of sound waves!  Scholars brainstorm questions about how sound travels and why different items make different sounds. They then conduct experiments to answer their questions.

Time to witness the effects of sound. Learners analyze different materials to determine their abilities to absorb sound waves. They use free software to monitor the amplitude of the waves to verify results.

Add a little music to your next physics class. Pupils discuss how frequency determines pitch and take part in several activities designed to teach them more about sound, melody, resonance, and vibrations. They use materials to construct...

How does sound travel through different mediums? Scholars explore this question by creating and observing sound waves as they learn the difference between transverse and longitudinal wave motion. Using their new knowledge, class members...

If a tree falls in the forest and no person is around, does it still make a sound? Students view a short video segment to determine sound and decibel levels of various objects, including the loudest and quietest possible sounds humans...

Amazingly, still images can produce sound. Watch as a video lesson describes the process scientists use to recover sound from still photography. The lesson includes discussion of sound waves, vibrations, and frequencies.

Hydrogen is odorless, colorless, and tasteless, but can we hear it? By taking the wavelengths of the atomic spectrum of radiation from hydrogen, the creator of the video shifts the waves into sound waves. Then, he shifts these waves into...

Make sound waves visible with an experiment that asks middle schoolers to build a model ear drum using plastic bottles, rubber bands, plastic wrap, and sand-like substances.

Resonate with the class. By watching a couple of videos, pupils realize that sound waves require a medium to travel and can break glass. They then listen to a lecture on resonance and work through a lab to calculate the speed of sound...

Take a real close look at your phone screen. What do you see? Here's an activity that provides guidance on how to look at a smart phone screen in order to see the pixels and to see how the phone creates colors and motion on the screen.