OpenSciEd
Open Sci Ed: 8.2 Sound Waves
Eighth graders develop ideas related to how sounds are produced, how they travel through media, and how they affect objects at a distance.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy: Beats and Interference of Sound Waves Review
Review of how to produce beats through the constructive and destructive interference of sound waves.
Physics Classroom
The Physics Classroom: Sound Waves and Music: Forced Vibration
With videos, illustrated diagrams, and informational text, students learn about sound waves as forced vibrations.
Physics Classroom
The Physics Classroom: Sound Waves and Music: Pitch and Frequency
Use this interactive physics tutorial to introduce students to the concepts of pitch and frequency in sound waves.
CK-12 Foundation
Ck 12: Physical Science: Sound Waves
[Free Registration/Login may be required to access all resource tools.] Definition of sound, what sound waves are, how they are generated and what media they can travel through.
Physics Classroom
The Physics Classroom: Sound Waves and Music: Natural Frequency
Through animations, videos, and text, students discover that all objects have a natural frequency or set of frequencies at which they vibrate.
Utah State Office of Education
Utah Science: Properties and Behaviors of Heat, Light and Sound
How can scientists lump heat, light and sound together when investigating properties and behaviors? This learning module will address that question through a series of activities.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Investigating Sound: Using Pipe Music to Understand Pitch and Length.
In this investigation the student will learn about sound waves and vibration. Students will use pipes to understand that the slower an object vibrates the lower the pitch and the faster an object vibrates the higher the pitch. Next...
The Franklin Institute
Franklin Institute: The Science of Sound
This Franklin Institute webpage provides an introduction to understanding sound waves based on 5th grade science lessons.
Physics Classroom
The Physics Classroom: Sound Waves and Music: Interference and Beats
Illustrated diagrams and interactive practice problems show constructive and destructive interference occurring at sound beats.
OpenSciEd
Open Sci Ed: Visualizing Sound in a Medium
This simulation is a slow motion version of what you might actually see if you could see particles in a medium vibrating.
Physics Classroom
The Physics Classroom: Waves and Sound: Slinky Lab Interactive
Manipulate this virtual slinky that consists of a collection of dots to represent its coils. Grab a coil, and shake it back and forth to create vibrations which travel through the slinky from the location where it is shook to the ends...
Physics Classroom
The Physics Classroom: Longitudinal Waves and Guitar Strings
A reference page including content and animations on longitudinal waves. Understand how sound waves are produced from vibrations in guitar strings to produce longitudinal waves.
Physics Classroom
The Physics Classroom: Waves and Sound: Standing Wave Patterns Interactive
Students investigate the formation of standing waves, the vibrational patterns associated with the various harmonics, and the difference between transverse and longitudinal standing waves.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Experimenting With Sound/compression Waves Through Vibration
Through inquiry, students will use various objects/materials attached to strings to investigate how vibration causes sounds waves.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: The Nature of Sound With a Slinky
A physics activity where students investigate how sound can be produced and changed. Students identify vibrations as the source of sound and how it can be amplified and received, and then explore the use of a slinky to explain the nature...
Scholastic
Scholastic: Study Jams! Science: Energy, Light and Sound: Sound
A video and a short quiz on how sound travels in waves, its properties, and how to measure it.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Exploring Sound: Length Makes a Difference
Students begin to explore the relationship between the length of an object and the sound it produces as it vibrates, by using a wood or plastic ruler and the edge of a desk or table.
Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College
Serc: Mn Step: Sound Makers
For this activity, students make a sound cylinder using a cardboard tube, and investigate the sound wave vibrations they can feel at its end when they speak into it.
Physics Central
Physics Central: Physics at Your Desk: Drumming Fingers
An easy experiment through which students explore sound waves while tapping their fingers on a desk or table in a quiet room.
![Pbs: The Music Instinct: Good Vibrations! [Pdf] Lesson Plan](https://content.lessonplanet.com/knovation/original/32599-2e1d15a712acffd6c74d979ac6bcf592.jpg?1661522343 "Pbs: The Music Instinct: Good Vibrations! [Pdf] Lesson Plan")
PBS
Pbs: The Music Instinct: Good Vibrations! [Pdf]
Using the program "The Music Instinct," available on the PBS website, students will explore the nature of sound vibrations over two class periods.
Read Works
Read Works: The Sounds of Baseball
[Free Registration/Login Required] An descriptive text about the sounds a person would hear at a baseball game. A question sheet is available to help students build skills in reading comprehension.
Georgia State University
Georgia State University: Hyper Physics: Transverse and Longitudinal Waves
The physics tutorial illustrates and explains the distinction between transverse and longitudinal waves. Related links provided.
Scholastic
Scholastic: Dirtmeister's Science Lab: Good Vibrations
An experiment that explores the relationship between vibrations and pitch. This site includes web links, a challenge question, and notes to the teacher.