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Physical Science Kit Resources Vancouver School District
In Sound, students use tuning forks, slide whistles, strings, and other sound-producing objects to investigate the characteristics of sound. Students learn that sound is caused by vibrations, and they explore how sound travels. They learn about the relationship of pitch and volume to the frequency and amplitude of vibrations. They discover, for example, that they can alter pitch by varying the length or tension of a string. Constructing simple stringed instruments, they discover how they can increase the volume of the sound produced by the strings. Students investigate the characteristics of another common sound-producing mechanism--the human vocal cords--and build model vocal cords. They also learn about the anatomy and functioning of the human ear. They apply what they learn in the unit by designing and building musical instruments or other sound-producing devices. By observing various properties of sound, you'll help students begin to understand the nature and properties of sound they experience around them. With the activities in the Sound kit, you'll encourage your students to observe and detail the · Understanding of how sound is produced and transmitted. This is a very exciting unit for young students because they have a chance to observe, touch, hold, build, design and apply testing techniques in science as they · Make predictions about pitch and volume while applying
tests to In this unit, not only do students find answers to their questions about sound, but they can begin to appreciate the consistency of the principles they have discovered. This reinforcement continues throughout the unit as they experiment with various devices and make connections between what they hear and what they can observe. Recording results with simple charts and diagrams as well as with words and pictures in their science notebooks enables students to review the results of their previous work and to make connections between what they learn in different investigations. Essential Lessons: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 14 In doing each of the essential lessons, all content and performance standards will be met for the Washington State EALR's and Benchmarks. The lessons can be done in clusters or combined grouping. To ease Kit usage the following lessons should be done in the above sequence. The instructional approach to enhance student inquiry and discovery is to combine the lessons in clusters (1, 2) , ( 3, 4 ) (5, 6 ), 8, (9, 10, 12) 14 and then culminate the unit with final project assessment. Lesson 7 is a good choice for an embedded assessment (Formative) and Lesson 15 or Lesson 16 as a Summative assessment. The grayed lessons should be done if time is available. This will assure that you will be able to accommodate all EALR and WASL requirements. If time is not available the grayed lessons could be eliminated, but this means that you will need to assure that the remaining lessons are done in breadth and depth.
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How can children study sound?
They can't see it. They can't touch it. But they do ask questions
about it. What causes different sounds? How does a guitar work?
Why do some sounds hurt my ears? Sound, an 8-week unit for third-grade
students, provides a series of activities to help children discover
answers to these and other questions they may have about sound.