Acoustical Society of America
Musical Instruments: Part I
Pupils construct and play various musical instruments made from straws and bottles. They investigate how changes in their instruments result in tone changes. Learners change the lengths and amount of water in the instruments and...
Teach Engineering
Acoustic Mirrors
Investigate sound waves with acoustic mirrors. Using audio software, groups make recordings of musical instruments, both with and without acoustic mirrors. They compare the recordings to see the effect of acoustic mirrors on sound...
California Department of Education
Slap Tubes, Flutes, and Xylophones: The Physics of Pipe-Based Instruments
It's the encore to a wave unit. Individuals build either a slap tube, flute, or xylophone as a culminating activity for a physics unit on waves. Scholars calculate the lengths of pipes needed to produce the specific notes for their...
Curated OER
Energy Transfer in Musical Instruments
Students create unique sounds using different instruments. In this energy lesson, students read and define several vocabulary terms such as heat, energy transfer and thermal equilibrium. Students utilize several household...
Curated OER
Driving Music
Students experience both playing a musical instrument and driving a car. The two experiences tied together by one engineer. The score appears as a road, with twists and turns representing the composer's suggested shifts in mood. This...
Curated OER
Woodwind Instruments and Pitch
Young scholars explore musical pitch. In this cross curriculum musical instruments and "sound" physics lesson, students identify and describe common traits of woodwind instruments. Young scholars research "pitch" and what causes pitch...
Curated OER
Rubber Band Banza
Third graders review ideas about sound and vibration to make their own stringed instrument. They review what a pictograph and bar graph are. Pupils conduct a survey within the classroom to choose the four favorite string instruments and...
Curated OER
Sounds Like Music
Young scholars define and examine the connections between sound and music and how engineers design instruments. They listen to examples of musical instruments, view a demonstration of a tuning fork and bottles filled with varying...
Curated OER
Loud or soft?
Send this cute activity home with kids, to increase family involvement. They'll consider what would happen if rice was bounced in a tambourine, and then they'll complete a sound activity by makings an instrument out of wax paper and a...
Curated OER
Making a Musical Instrument
Students determine how music is produced through sound waves and how instruments produce music differently than others. They construct flutes out of straws and explore how to adjust the sound.
Curated OER
String Instruments and Pitch
Students make predictions and explore how pitch is altered in string instruments. In this acoustic science lesson, students learn the types and parts of string instruments and create their own. They listen to classical music and identify...
Curated OER
Musical Milfoil
Pupils play a game that is a version of musical chairs to introduce them to invasive aquatic plants. In this aquatic plants lesson plan, students play 4 rounds of this game.
Curated OER
The Musical Mind
Students go on a tour of how and why music styles have changed over the years, and discover where they can gather some insight about their favorite musical styles and artists. There are excellent websites imbedded in this lesson plan.
It's About Time
Sounds in Strings
How many of your pupils play an instrument? A musical science lesson will help all of them understand how string instruments work. Young scientists construct a string-and-pulley system to test frequency and pitch. The lesson...
Physics Classroom
Name That Harmonic: Strings
Don't string your class along! Physics scholars discover the fascinating forces behind the music of stringed instruments using an interactive. From a series covering sounds and waves, the interactive asks users to identify nodes and...
Virginia Department of Education
Sound
Add a little music to your next physics class. Pupils discuss how frequency determines pitch and take part in several activities designed to teach them more about sound, melody, resonance, and vibrations. They use materials to construct...
BBC
Sound and Hearing
First and second graders recognize that sound is generated in a variety of ways, and that it comes from many different sources. They explore tone and volume, realizing that there are different ways to describe sound. Some musical...
Curated OER
Sounds Like Science-Kazoo
Students demonstrate how energy is used to make a sound. In this sound instructional activity, students construct a kazoo from a comb and identify how a sound is made by using force.
Curated OER
Wind
Learners make a wind vane, anemometer, wind spiral, and wind streamer to calculate wind movement. In this wind lesson plan, students test each of their wind instruments, and graph the results of the wind speed in different locations.
Curated OER
Science, Sounds And Hearing
Middle schoolers examine various sounds that are played on musical instruments. They conduct an experiment to listening to different instruments. They define significant vocabulary like "vibration" and "oscillation". Students suggest...
Curated OER
Flowers Growing Through Music, Rhymes & Movement
First graders experience the growing process of a seed becoming a flower as it is exposed to the sun, rain, wind, day and night, and -tickling- bees as they move creatively to music.
Curated OER
Archeologists For a Day
Learners listen to a reading about fossils and go on a hunt for items with fossil characteristics. In this cross curricular fossil lesson, students will examine their fossil finds and create a graphic organizer. Learners...
Curated OER
Experimenting with Sound
Learners explore physical science by completing a worksheet. In this sound perception lesson, students collaborate in small groups to research sound properties on the Internet and in libraries. Learners conduct a listening experiment by...
Curated OER
Paws on Jobland
Learners explore various careers in science. In this science and society lesson, the teacher leads a discussion on science careers and duties and responsibilities related to the careers, then students work together to create a mural of...