How is sound produced?
Answers
Answer:
Sound is a type of energy made by vibrations. When an object vibrates, it causes movement in surrounding air molecules. These molecules bump into the molecules close to them, causing them to vibrate as well. This makes them bump into more nearby air molecules.
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Details
Activity Length
15 Activities
Topics
Energy
Sound
Activity Type
Unit
Language
English
Sound is all about vibrations.
The source of a sound vibrates, bumping into nearby air molecules which in turn bump into their neighbours, and so forth. This results in a wave of vibrations travelling through the air to the eardrum, which in turn also vibrates. What the sound wave will sound like when it reaches the ear depends on a number of things such as the medium it travels through and the strength of the initial vibration.
In the following activities, students will use simple materials to create, visualize and feel sound waves, investigate vibration and its role in producing sound, and make their own percussion instruments.
List of Activities:
Sound = Vibration, Vibration, Vibration
Telephone Lines
Modelling a Sound Wave
Speaking Involves Air, Vibration and Muscle
Feeling the Vibes!
Exploring Pitch and Volume
Musical Bottles
Whirly Tubes
Weight a Minute
Boomwhacker Orchestra
Homemade Kazoo
Rainsticks
Bullfrog Caller
Bullroarer
Spoons on Strings
Objectives
Describe how sound is produced.
Understand how our inner ear contributes to hearing.
List some properties of sound.
Describe what pitch is and how it varies.
Materials
See individual activities for materials.
Background
Sound is a type of energy made by vibrations. When an object vibrates, it causes movement in surrounding air molecules. These molecules bump into the molecules close to them, causing them to vibrate as well. This makes them bump into more nearby air molecules. This “chain reaction” movement, called sound waves, keeps going until the molecules run out of energy. As a result, there is a series of molecular collisions as the sound wave passes through the air, but the air molecules themselves don’t travel with the wave. As it is disturbed, each molecule just moves away from a resting point but then eventually returns to it.