Grade level
Planning and carrying out investigations
Patterns
Cause and Effect
PS4.A: Wave Properties
In small groups, students investigated how different materials create sound by rotating through five centers. At each center, students discussed what they saw and heard, and recorded their observations of what they see and what they hear in their science journals. The five centers included: (1) plucking a rubber band stretched over a cup; (2) tapping a tuning fork on a block and placing it in water; (3) squeezing a rubber chicken; (4) shaking maracas; and (5) spinning a whistling tube.
In the subsequent class discussion, students are asked to identify common patterns that they noticed across the different stations, with an aim to connect this task’s investigation to a causal explanation for how sound is produced.
Artifacts A-C show students’ written observations for Centers 1 and 2 – the plucking of a rubber band and striking of a tuning fork – for what they see and what they hear. Whereas Artifact A records the objects seen at each station, Artifacts B and C see what is happening to the objects: the rubber band is “vibrating,” and the tuning fork, also vibrating, results in “the water moving” when placed in water. These visual observations of movement are a key element for students understanding the mechanism that causes sound to be produced.
The students in the video of Artifact D discuss with vivid description the type of sound that is made: a “popcorn” or “POP POP” sound, with another student describing it as a “low” sound and another as a “loud” sound. The students in the video of Artifact E, also distinguish different types of sound (e.g. “sharper” and “deeper”); it is only toward the end of this video that the visual cue of the rubber band going “up and down quickly” is raised. Here, students have noticed that the rubber bands are moving, but have not described it as a “vibration” nor connected it to the cause of the sound being produced.
