Light and sound are everywhere, but hard to define. These age-appropriate activities will provide your students with a solid basis for exploring these concepts with confidence.

Experiments with laser beams and hands-on models will delight students as they learn about light. Practical activities with music, hand made telephones, and model ears will instill a love for learning science in students while teaching the basics of sound.

Activities are curriculum-based and also include highly motivational experiences - like playing tag using echolocation, just like bats.

The experiments in this curriculum fall under nine topics: Introduction to Light, Light and Society, spreading and Fading, Shadows, Transmission, Reflection, and Absorption, What Is Sound?, Humans and Sound, Echoes and Traveling Sound, and Pitch and Intensity.

A tenth section on Sound Machines provides an excellent way to integrate the sound material that has been learned and introduce a technology component to the curriculum. 

In each section, you will find teacher notes designed to provide guidance on the materials and setup needed, as well as highlight any safety precautions. 

Introduction Includes:

• At A Glance TM - List of Skills and Learning Expectations

• Teacher Rubric

• Student Rubric

• Introduction

• Materials List 

Lesson Topics: 

Introduction to Light

• Teacher Notes

• Student Activities

  • Can You See in the Dark?: The students will often insist they can still see when in total darkness.

  • The Source of Light Worksheet

  • Light Travels Fast: Understanding that all light must have a source.

  • Light Travels Straight: Light travels straight and this is not affected by forces such as gravity, sound waves, and the motion of air.

• Answer Key 

Light and Society

• Teacher Notes

• Student Activities

  • You Light up My Life: Encourage students to think not about “lights” as objects but light sources.

  • Light-Detecting Plants Experiment

  • How We Use Light Worksheets

  • What Is a Light Bulb? Worksheets

  • Do Light Bulbs Waste Energy? Experiment

• Answer Key 

Spreading and Fading

• Teacher Notes

• Student Activities

  • Making a Reflectometer: A reflectometer is a simple device used to measure light reflecting off a surface.

  • Does Light Spread Out? Part 1: Students will tend to assume that even though light spreads out, more light is there to fill in the gaps.

  • Does Light Spread Out? Part 2: Some students will find it difficult to choose one area as high, medium, and lowest in terms of brightness but encourage them to do it as they see it; there is no right answer.

  • Brightness Decreases with Distance Experiment

  • How Does Light Spread Out?: This analogy of light as sand allows for measuring and graphing.

• Answer Key 

Shadows

• Teacher Notes

• Student Activities

  • Changing Shadows: This activity explores the nature of shadows.

  • Shadows and Light: The goal of this exercise is to have the students understand that the shape of a fixed object’s shadow (in this case a block representing a building) is determined by the position of the light source.

• Answer Key 

Transmission, Absorption, and Reflection

• Teacher Notes

• Student Activities

  • I See Through You!: The ability to read through the material is the best test for transparency/translucency.

  • It’s Play Time!: This activity provides ample opportunity to explore the properties of transparent, translucent, and opaque materials.

  • Bouncing Light: The two objectives are to have the students anticipate and witness that light reflects at an expected angle, for example light striking at 45 degrees will be directed away at 45 degrees.

  • What Reflects Light?: Gray paper is not critical, colored paper can be used

  • Absorbing Light: This can be a class activity with one set of boxes or can be done by groups of students.

• Answer Key 

What Is Sound?

• Teacher Notes

• Student Activities

  • Where Does Sound Come From?: Students learn about the different ways sound is produced

  • Make a Kazoo – Steps how to and a worksheet

  • Does Sound Travel?: This activity demonstrates how sound travels through the air once it is produced.

• Answer Key 

Humans and Sound

• Teacher Notes

• Student Activities

  • How Do Humans Make Sound: Students will sing and use their fingertips placed on their throats to discover that it is vibration that produce singing and talking sounds.

  • Make an Ear: Students will make a model of an eardrum and see how it vibrates when sound reaches it.

  • How Do Humans Hear Sound?: Students will be made aware of basic ear anatomy, and relate this to what they have learned about how sound travels and how it is related to vibration.

  • Why Do We Have Two Ears?: Students will learn that having two ears makes it easier to determine where sounds are coming from.

  • Sound Patrol Worksheets

• Answer Key 

Echoes and Traveling Sound

• Teacher Notes

• Student Activities

  • Speed of Sound: In this activity, the class goes to a large open space such as a football field.

  • Sound Travels: In this activity, the teacher places a radio in the middle of the class, speaker pointing upwards, and students sit around it.

  • Blocking Sound: In this activity, the students will learn that different materials can block sound more or less effectively.

  • Echoes and Bats: Echoes and echolocation are addressed in these activities.

  • Bat and Mosquito Game: Echoes and echolocation are addressed in these activities.

  • Would You Be a Good Bat?: Echoes and echolocation are addressed in these activities.

• Answer Key 

Pitch and Intensity

• Teacher Notes

• Student Activities

  • Make a Xylophone: Students will build their own musical instrument (a xylophone with baby jars filled with various amounts of water) and the concept of pitch can be reinforced.

  • The Intensity of Sound: Students will learn to use a decibel meter to measure how loud a sound is.

  • Sound Patrol: A sound patrol will be formed and the students will search for potentially dangerous sources of loud noise around their school.

• Answer Key 

Sound Machines

• Teacher Notes

• Student Activities

  • How Does a Speaker Work?: Students will see how a speaker inside a radio vibrates to create sound.

  • Make a Tin Can Telephone: Students will build a tin-can telephone.

  • Make a Pan Flute: Students will make musical instruments.

  • Make a Guitar: Students will make musical instruments.

  • Sound Crossword Worksheet

  • Sound Wordsearch Worksheet

• Answer Key 

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