National Science Standards:
www.nap.edu/html/nses/
Content Standard A
As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop
- Abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry
- Understandings about scientific inquiry
Content Standard B
As a result of their activities in grades 5–8, all students should develop an understanding of:
- Properties and changes of properties in matter
- Motions and forces
- Transfer of energy
National Standards for Arts Education: Music:
http://artsedge.kennedycenter.org/teach/standards.cfm?subjectId=MUS&gradeBandId=&sortColumn=&x=8&y=3
Content Standard 6: Listening to, analyzing, and describing music
Grades 5-8 Achievement Standard
- Students demonstrate knowledge of the basic principles of meter, rhythm, tonality, intervals, chords, and harmonic progressions in their analyses of music
Materials
For the class:
- Computer with internet access and audiovisual projection system
- Slinky™
For each group of several students:
- Wire hanger
- String (precut to one 4 foot length for each group)
- Yarn (precut to one 4 foot length for each group)
- Metal wire (precut to one 4 foot length and one six foot length for each group)
- Ruler
- “Sound Mediums” Student Organizer (PDF) (RTF)
Objectives
Students will be able to:
- Define key terminology about sound
- Describe the movement of sound waves through various mediums and how different sounds produce different types of waves
- Understand that the human body is itself a medium through which sound and music may be appreciated by a deaf person
- Explain how sound is generally perceived by the ear and transmitted to the brain
- Understand that the audible spectrum of sounds which humans can hear is a small part of an overall frequency spectrum of ultrasonic and infrasonic sound
