Grade level
Developing and using models
Constructing explanations (for science) and designing solutions (for engineering)
Patterns
Cause and Effect
Energy and Matter
PS4.A: Wave Properties
After watching a video of the anchoring phenomenon – a boy breaking a wine glass only by using his voice – students were prompted to draw an initial model that helps to explain the guiding question: "How can your voice break a glass?” Students were prompted to include arrows, labels, numbers, words, and diagrams to show their thinking. In one class, students developed individual models; in another class, students developed group models.
These initial models show a number of commonalities in the ways that students represent sound travelling and causing the glass to break. Most students represent sound traveling with sequential crescent lines, with some showing its movement in one intended direction (Artifacts C, D, E, G), and others showing sound radiating out in multiple directions (Artifacts A, F). Several students specifically identify the boy’s voice traveling as a “sound wave” (Artifacts A, D, G). It is worth noting two representations that reverse the crescent shape (Artifacts C, D).
Across the models, there is some variance in the attribution of the cause of the breaking glass. Several artifacts (A, B, E, G & H) connect the sound of the boy’s voice as creating or transferring vibrating motion to the glass. Two others indicate the physical concept of force as being relevant in some way (Artifacts C, F).
Artifact D stands apart in the identification of the concepts of pitch and pressure; the association with volume may be a vague callback to the gas laws. Interestingly, only Artifact A suggests that the amount of waves is relevant, and only Artifact F specifically calls out volume as a relevant factor. Artifacts B and E are noteworthy in that they attend to the microscopic view of what may be occurring at the atomic scale.
