The Science of Sound Waves


by:  Michelle Bertke

Sound can be a difficult concept to portray because the sound waves cannot be seen or touched.  Luckily, there are several at home experiments that demonstrate the properties of sound waves.

Water tank to show ‘Sound Waves’

You can use a fish tank half filled with water to give a visual demonstration The Science of Sound Waves - Educational Innovations Blogof ‘sound waves’.  Water is a perfect medium to show the propagation of waves. This demonstrates how sound waves travel though the air.  There are two ways to display this activity.  One way is to simply press your hands onto the top of the water and allow the waves to be made by the pressure of your hand.  This allows students to see how waves travel though a medium.  You can also use this to point out the aspects of a wave such as frequency and amplitude.  Another way to show waves is to place a speaker next to the tank and allow the sound to produce the waves.  This can show that sound is a form of pressure just like your hand. Read the rest of this entry »


Pocket Sound Blaster


Norm Barstow, Educational Innovationsby: Norman Barstow

Frequency, Wavelength and Pitch:

Sound is a tone you hear as the result of regular, evenly spaced waves of air molecules. The most noticeable difference is that some tones sound higher or lower than others. These differences are caused by variations in spacing between the waves; the closer the waves are, the higher the tone sounds. The spacing of the waves – the distance from the high point of one wave to high point of the next one – is the wavelength.

Read the rest of this entry »