Sound studio
View Sequence overviewStudents will:
- make observations about how sound causes vibrations.
- explain how vibrations travel to a listener’s ear.
Students will represent their understanding as they:
- share their observations (verbally) with the class.
In this lesson assessment is formative. Feedback might focus on:
- students’ descriptions/explanations of their experiences. Are they able to explain that all sounds come from a vibration source and that vibrations travel from the source to a person’s ear?
- students’ observations. Are they able to link their observations to the evidence they collected during their investigations (different sounds heard when they touched their ear and tapped their elbow, louder bell sound when the vibration travelled through the string directly to their ear)?
- students’ representations. How have they represented the sound wave? How have they represented the direction the sound moved?
- This is just for noting, as there will be opportunities to develop this more explicitly later in this sequence.
Whole class
Class science journal (digital or hard-copy)
An item to demonstrate sound as a vibration, for example a guitar/ukelele, a ruler, a xylophone/glockenspiel, or an elastic band
Each group
1 x inflated balloon
1 x wire coat hanger
2 x 60cm lengths of string, with a loop tied in one end, large enough to fit over students’ ears. The other end will be tied to the wire coat hanger by students during the lesson. You might prefer to tie the strings to either end of the coat hanger prior to the lesson if students do not have the time or motor skills to do so.
1 x 'striker'—something firm and long enough for students to hold, whilst still having a good length of the item protruding from their hands. For example a pen, pencil or texta, ruler or paintbrush.
Optional: 2 x plastic/paper cups with a hole punched in the base
Safety note—balloons
Some students may be allergic to rubber.
Do not blow the balloons up too much, as they could burst.
Each student
Individual science journal (digital or hard-copy)
Lesson
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkRe-orient
Recall the previous lesson, focusing on the sounds students made and the discussion about Disney sound effects.
Review the meaning of the terms:
- sound effect—any sound, other than music or speech, added separately to a video, song, or other recording, for effect.
- Foley—the process/methods for making sound effects, named after Jack Foley.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkIdentifying and constructing questions is the creative driver of the inquiry process. It allows students to explore what they know and how they know it. During the Inquire phase of the LIA Framework, the Question routine allows for past activities to be reviewed and to set the scene for the investigation that students will undertake. The use of effective questioning techniques can influence students’ view and interpretation of upcoming content, open them to exploration and link to their current interests and science capital.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to spend some time considering the mindset of students at the start of each Inquire phase. What do you want students to be thinking about, what do they already know and what is the best way for them to approach the task? What might tap into their curiosity?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkWhat is sound?
If students have asked questions during the question generation task in Lesson 1 in relation to what sound is, how it moves or how we can hear, use these questions as a starting point for the investigation.
Otherwise, or additionally, pose the question: What is sound and how does it get to our ears?
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkThe Investigate routine provides students with an opportunity to explore the key ideas of science, to plan and conduct an investigation, and to gather and record data. The investigations are designed to systematically develop content knowledge and skills through increasingly complex processes of structured inquiry, guided inquiry and open inquiry approaches. Students are encouraged to process data to identify trends and patterns and link them to the real-world context of the teaching sequence.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment (Launch phase) that identified the alternative conceptions that students held. Are there activities that challenge these ideas and provide openings for discussion? What content knowledge and skills do students need to be able to complete the final (Act phase) task? How could you systematically build these through the investigation routines? Are there opportunities to build students’ understanding and skills in the science inquiry processes through the successive investigations?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkVibrating vocal cords
Ask students to place their hand gently on the front of their neck/throat and invite them to make some sounds—you might sing a favourite school or community song, rehearse a schoolyard chant, or simply hum.
Students describe what they can feel and explain what they think might be happening.
Students should feel the ‘buzzing’ sensation produced by the larynx when talking, singing, humming etc. They might also feel the larynx move up and down if they swallow. Students do not need to use the term ‘larynx’, and ‘voice box’ will suffice at this level. Determine which vocabulary is most suitable for your students' needs and context.
If students have not offered it themselves, introduce the term ‘vibrate’ to describe the buzzing feeling they felt in their throat. Define the term ‘vibrate’: to move continuously and rapidly back and forth. Write it on a card or in the class science journal. You might also use drawings to support students' understanding.
If required, distinguish between the vibration they feel while making sounds and the movement of the larynx when swallowing, making it clear that the up and down movement does not produce sound, and is caused because other muscles in the throat move in the act of swallowing. Students might note that they can ‘hear’ themselves swallowing, but this is an ‘internal’ sound and cannot be projected to others without specialist equipment, such as they might have experienced at a doctor’s office.
In pairs, have students investigate vibrations further with a balloon. Students take turns speaking with their mouths close to the inflated balloon while their partner holds the balloon to feel the vibrations. Advise students that they are not to scream or shout at the balloon or near anybody’s ear, as this can cause damage to a person's hearing.
Sound is a vibration
Why do vibrations equal sound?
Objects need to vibrate for sound to occur. The action causing the vibration is a form of movement/kinetic energy. Hitting a surface, plucking a string, and blowing a reed are all movements that give energy to an object and cause it to vibrate.
A vibrating object repeatedly moves back and forth, pushing and pulling the surrounding substance, for example, air. This creates pressure or compression waves in the substance, which can be gas, solid or liquid. The substance (solid, liquid or gas) around a vibrating object is made of particles. The particles closest to the vibrating object are pushed by the object’s movement. These particles in turn push the particles around them, transferring their energy. These waves of pressure/compression travelling from particle to particle (through the substance) are called sound waves and are what our ears interpret as sound.
Objects need to vibrate for sound to occur. The action causing the vibration is a form of movement/kinetic energy. Hitting a surface, plucking a string, and blowing a reed are all movements that give energy to an object and cause it to vibrate.
A vibrating object repeatedly moves back and forth, pushing and pulling the surrounding substance, for example, air. This creates pressure or compression waves in the substance, which can be gas, solid or liquid. The substance (solid, liquid or gas) around a vibrating object is made of particles. The particles closest to the vibrating object are pushed by the object’s movement. These particles in turn push the particles around them, transferring their energy. These waves of pressure/compression travelling from particle to particle (through the substance) are called sound waves and are what our ears interpret as sound.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkFollowing an investigation, the Integrate routine provides time and space for data to be evaluated and insights to be synthesized. It reveals new insights, consolidates and refines representations, generalises context and broadens students’ perspectives. It allows student thinking to become visible and opens formative feedback opportunities. It may also lead to further questions being asked, allowing the Inquire phase to start again.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment that was undertaken during the Launch phase. Consider if alternative conceptions could be used as a jumping off point to discussions. How could students represent their learning in a way that would support formative feedback opportunities? Could small summative assessment occur at different stages in the teaching sequence?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkDiscussing students’ observations
Discuss what students observed as they spoke close to the balloon.
- What could you feel as you spoke into the balloon?
- What happened when your partner spoke into the balloon?
- What could you feel when you and/or your partner stopped talking into the balloon?
Demonstrate some other ways sound is made using vibration, for example plucking the strings of a guitar/ukelele, twanging a ruler held tightly, with some of it overhanging the edge of a desk, hitting a xylophone/glockenspiel, or plucking stretched rubber bands.
Discuss with students what is making all of these sounds, including the sounds made with their throats and with the balloons, and what all the sounds have in common: they all involve vibration.
Through discussion and questioning determine that sound is created when something vibrates. For example, the vocal cords of the throat vibrate when air from your lungs pushes on the vocal cords. And, when we spoke into the balloon, we could also feel the vibrations on the balloon.
Add any questions the students have about vibrations to the list created in the class science journal during Lesson 1.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkIdentifying and constructing questions is the creative driver of the inquiry process. It allows students to explore what they know and how they know it. During the Inquire phase of the LIA Framework, the Question routine allows for past activities to be reviewed and to set the scene for the investigation that students will undertake. The use of effective questioning techniques can influence students’ view and interpretation of upcoming content, open them to exploration and link to their current interests and science capital.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to spend some time considering the mindset of students at the start of each Inquire phase. What do you want students to be thinking about, what do they already know and what is the best way for them to approach the task? What might tap into their curiosity?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkThe Investigate routine provides students with an opportunity to explore the key ideas of science, to plan and conduct an investigation, and to gather and record data. The investigations are designed to systematically develop content knowledge and skills through increasingly complex processes of structured inquiry, guided inquiry and open inquiry approaches. Students are encouraged to process data to identify trends and patterns and link them to the real-world context of the teaching sequence.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment (Launch phase) that identified the alternative conceptions that students held. Are there activities that challenge these ideas and provide openings for discussion? What content knowledge and skills do students need to be able to complete the final (Act phase) task? How could you systematically build these through the investigation routines? Are there opportunities to build students’ understanding and skills in the science inquiry processes through the successive investigations?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkSound travels to the ear
Pose the question: If sound is created when something vibrates, how do we hear the sound with our ears?
Students will conduct an investigation to answer this question.
Model raising one arm with elbow bent so that your index finger is pointing into the air, then holding your elbow with your other hand. Ask students to do the same. Students tap on their elbow with one finger (using the hand holding the elbow) and listen carefully to the sound that they are making.
- What sound can you hear?
- Where is the sound coming from?
- How is the sound getting from your elbow to your ear?
- I can hear the tapping on my elbow through the air.
Model placing your raised index finger on the fleshy part in the front of your ear (not inside the ear), and pushing gently to 'close' your ear. Invite students to do the same, then to tap on their elbow again.
- What sound can you hear?
- Where is the sound coming from?
- How is the sound getting from your elbow to your ear?
- I can hear the tapping on my elbow through the air, but I can also hear it inside my ear, like it's travelled up through my arm.
Repeat the steps so students can hear the difference between the sounds created and discuss these differences.
- Did the sound change?
- How did it change?
- It was louder the second time. It was like I could hear it directly inside my ear. The first sound I could hear was coming from further away, where my elbow was. But the second sound was inside my arm and ear.
- Why were the sounds different?
- The first sound I could only hear once. It was not very loud. The second sound was much louder because I could hear it twice—once as it came from my elbow into the air, and again because it was coming through my arm/finger and directly into my ear.
- Did anyone have difficulty hearing the slightly different sounds?
Students then work in collaborative teams to further explore the way sound travels to their ears, using a wire coat hanger to make sounds.
If not already done, students tie the two lengths of string to either side of the coat hanger.
One student holds the strings so that the wire coat hanger is dangling freely, away from the body (see image below). Their partner strikes the coat hanger with the striker (a pencil, ruler etc.).
Next, students will take it in turns to hang the end of each string, using the loops, over their ears. The other student taps the coat hanger, and the student with the strings describes the sound to their partner. Note that the string hangs over the students' ears, and does not touch their neck or throat.
Allow time for students to investigate the sounds that they can hear through the air and through the string. Circulate among the groups encouraging students’ thinking by asking questions, such as:
- Did you try tapping the coat hanger hard against the table and listening through the air? What did you hear?
- Is it the same as when you listen through the string?
- The sound was louder through the string and sounded like metal.
- The sound was louder through the string and sounded like metal.
Optional: Provide equipment for students to explore a string telephone. Encourage students to explore the telephone by using longer pieces of string, wetting the string, varying the tension in the string, using materials other than string, or by whispering into the cup.
Optional: Students might also listen to the sound of tapping a pencil on a desk, and compare what they hear sitting normally to what they hear with an ear pressed flat on the desk.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkFollowing an investigation, the Integrate routine provides time and space for data to be evaluated and insights to be synthesized. It reveals new insights, consolidates and refines representations, generalises context and broadens students’ perspectives. It allows student thinking to become visible and opens formative feedback opportunities. It may also lead to further questions being asked, allowing the Inquire phase to start again.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment that was undertaken during the Launch phase. Consider if alternative conceptions could be used as a jumping off point to discussions. How could students represent their learning in a way that would support formative feedback opportunities? Could small summative assessment occur at different stages in the teaching sequence?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkSound source role-play
Teams share their observations with the class.
- When was the sound louder?
- Did it sound the same?
- When and how did it sound different?
- Did you feel anything in the strings when you were holding them in your hands and hitting the coat hanger?
- Did you feel the same thing once the string was touching your ears?
- Was the amount of time you could hear the sound different when the strings were touching your ears, as compared to when it was touching your partner’s ears?
- You might demonstrate this again with the whole class. Ask one student to stand in front of the class with the strings connected to their ears. Ask students, including the student at the front, to raise their hand when they hear the sound, and lower it when they can't hear it any more. The person with the strings connected to their ears will hear the sound for significantly longer than the students spectating- say 30 seconds, as compared to 1 or 2 seconds.
- Do sounds travel best through air or through string? How do you know this?
- How does the sound travel through the hanger/string/air?
- The vibrations travel through the hanger/string/air to our ear.
Record students’ answers in the class science journal.
Next, students will participate in a role-play to experientially model how sound travels from its source to their ears.
Form students into one line and ask them to hold hands with the person behind and in front of them. Designate the student at one end of the line the ‘sound source’, and the student at the other end of the line as the ‘ear’, with all the students in between representing ‘air’.
Instruct the ‘sound source’ to begin to hum, and to vibrate the hand they are holding to represent this humming. Instruct the students representing the air to vibrate when the hand of the person next to them begins to vibrate. In this way humming sets off a chain reaction, sending the sound from student to student ‘through the air’ to the ‘ear’ at the other end of the line.
Advise the sound source to stop humming and stop vibrating the hand they are holding, thus setting off another chain reaction stopping the sound.
Revise the definition of vibrate discussed earlier in the lesson and then discuss the sorts of body movements students made to represent it.
Introduce the term ‘sound wave’ and explain that the travelling vibration that moves the sound from the source to the ear is called a sound wave. Discuss the various definitions of the term ‘wave’, and ask students to make body movements to represent what they look like.
Support your students to draw a correlation between the movements of ‘vibration’ and ‘wave’: they both involve back and forth movements.
Discuss how the sound wave travelled in the coat hanger investigation: from the coat hanger sound source through the air to the ear, and sometimes through the string to the ear.
Ask students if they have any questions about how vibrations travel and record their ideas in the class science journal.
Students create an annotated or labelled drawing in their science journal to show their understanding of what they have experienced in the lesson about sound causing vibrations and these vibrations moving as sound waves from the source to their ears. It is not necessary to provide students any specific direction on what/how to represent their current understanding, as this will be addressed later in the sequence.
Undertake a gallery walk to share students’ annotated drawings, taking note of any specific vocabulary used, how students represented vibration, how they identified the sound source, and if arrows were used to indicate the direction of travel.
Reflect on the lesson
You might:
- discuss any objects that the students have brought in for the sound collection table.
- update the word wall with words and images. For example, ‘vibration’ and 'sound wave'.
- add a coat hanger (with strings attached) to the sound table.
- relate what students have experienced to the context of creating sound effects by discussing what other sounds the sounds students made during the lesson could represent. For example, hitting the coat hanger with a metal fork could sound like a bell dinging, or the vibrating balloon could sound like a buzzing fly.
Representational challenge modelling and drawing sound waves
How are the role-play and subsequent representation tasks important for developing students’ conceptual understanding?
Scientists use models to represent and visualise complex ideas. Models can help bring these ideas into focus, leading to more questions and better explanations. Models are also used to communicate ideas to others. They can be evaluated and refined over time.
In this lesson students participate in several hands-on exploratory investigations to support them to develop their understanding of what happens when sounds are made, and how sound travels, including the balloon vibrations, tapping their elbow, tapping a coat hanger, and string telephone investigations.
They then create a physical model to represent the phenomenon in the form of a role-play. So what are they experiencing in this role play?
Sound is a vibration that spreads as a wave through a material—either solid, liquid or gas. The vibration causes a periodic change in pressure and density of the air around it, creating a sound wave.
When we hear something, we are sensing the vibration of the particles in the air. For a sound to be heard, it must reach our ears with enough energy to make the internal ear parts vibrate. Specifically, the vibrations enter the outer ear and cause our eardrums to vibrate (or oscillate). Attached to the eardrum are three tiny bones that also vibrate: the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup. These bones make larger vibrations within the inner ear, essentially amplifying the incoming vibrations before they are picked up by the auditory nerve.
Young students might have difficulty conceptualising how a sound moves so the role-play is used as an experiential model to demonstrate this, in which the shaking of body parts represents the vibrations.
All scientific models have limitations, however, and this activity has the potential to reinforce the alternative conception that sound travels from its source directly to a person’s ear. You can counteract this by discussing that sound waves travel in all directions even if no one is listening (a variation of the puzzle "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"). This will be further explored in Lesson 4 when students experience a ‘sound-circle’ to demonstrate that sound travels in all directions.
It is also important to emphasise that air is the material through which most sound reaches our ears, as students do not see air or feel the movement of the air particles. Correlation can be drawn to the movement of air particles that students may have explored when learning about wind in the Year 1 teaching sequence ‘Any day outdoors’.
After experiencing the phenomena of sound waves in multiple ways, including the role-play, students transfer this experiential and physical model into a graphic representation. They are challenged to use their existing literacy skills to draw and write to show their understanding of how vibrations create sound, and how sound moves.
At this point there are no specific scientific conventions or requirements requested from students, allowing them to represent their understanding of new concepts in familiar ways using their existing vocabulary, and any new words they have learned in the first two lesson.
Students might represent any/all of the experiences they have had during the course of the lesson, including the balloon vibrations, ear/sound investigations, tapping the coat hanger, string telephone or the sound source role-play. Take note of how students have represented vibration, how they identified the sound source, and if arrows were used to indicate the direction of travel, as well as any specific vocabulary that has been used.
The gallery walk will provide an opportunity to draw attention to any students who have used wave like shapes to represent the movement of sound, or arrow heads to show the direction the sound travelled, thus developing a shared representational language in context.
The use of arrows to represent the movement of energy is a standard scientific practice that student will encounter again many times across the primary years, including when learning about heat in Year 3, food chains in Year 4, forces in Year 4, light in Year 5, and electricity in Year 6. As this is students’ first encounter with the idea it is a great opportunity to lay the groundwork for years of subsequent learning and representations.
Scientists use models to represent and visualise complex ideas. Models can help bring these ideas into focus, leading to more questions and better explanations. Models are also used to communicate ideas to others. They can be evaluated and refined over time.
In this lesson students participate in several hands-on exploratory investigations to support them to develop their understanding of what happens when sounds are made, and how sound travels, including the balloon vibrations, tapping their elbow, tapping a coat hanger, and string telephone investigations.
They then create a physical model to represent the phenomenon in the form of a role-play. So what are they experiencing in this role play?
Sound is a vibration that spreads as a wave through a material—either solid, liquid or gas. The vibration causes a periodic change in pressure and density of the air around it, creating a sound wave.
When we hear something, we are sensing the vibration of the particles in the air. For a sound to be heard, it must reach our ears with enough energy to make the internal ear parts vibrate. Specifically, the vibrations enter the outer ear and cause our eardrums to vibrate (or oscillate). Attached to the eardrum are three tiny bones that also vibrate: the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup. These bones make larger vibrations within the inner ear, essentially amplifying the incoming vibrations before they are picked up by the auditory nerve.
Young students might have difficulty conceptualising how a sound moves so the role-play is used as an experiential model to demonstrate this, in which the shaking of body parts represents the vibrations.
All scientific models have limitations, however, and this activity has the potential to reinforce the alternative conception that sound travels from its source directly to a person’s ear. You can counteract this by discussing that sound waves travel in all directions even if no one is listening (a variation of the puzzle "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?"). This will be further explored in Lesson 4 when students experience a ‘sound-circle’ to demonstrate that sound travels in all directions.
It is also important to emphasise that air is the material through which most sound reaches our ears, as students do not see air or feel the movement of the air particles. Correlation can be drawn to the movement of air particles that students may have explored when learning about wind in the Year 1 teaching sequence ‘Any day outdoors’.
After experiencing the phenomena of sound waves in multiple ways, including the role-play, students transfer this experiential and physical model into a graphic representation. They are challenged to use their existing literacy skills to draw and write to show their understanding of how vibrations create sound, and how sound moves.
At this point there are no specific scientific conventions or requirements requested from students, allowing them to represent their understanding of new concepts in familiar ways using their existing vocabulary, and any new words they have learned in the first two lesson.
Students might represent any/all of the experiences they have had during the course of the lesson, including the balloon vibrations, ear/sound investigations, tapping the coat hanger, string telephone or the sound source role-play. Take note of how students have represented vibration, how they identified the sound source, and if arrows were used to indicate the direction of travel, as well as any specific vocabulary that has been used.
The gallery walk will provide an opportunity to draw attention to any students who have used wave like shapes to represent the movement of sound, or arrow heads to show the direction the sound travelled, thus developing a shared representational language in context.
The use of arrows to represent the movement of energy is a standard scientific practice that student will encounter again many times across the primary years, including when learning about heat in Year 3, food chains in Year 4, forces in Year 4, light in Year 5, and electricity in Year 6. As this is students’ first encounter with the idea it is a great opportunity to lay the groundwork for years of subsequent learning and representations.