Visualizing Sound

First grade started a unit on sound recently. To help enhance what they were learning in their classroom, I set up some sound stations in the lab.

The first station students were dipping tuning forks into water to see how the vibrations cause liquid to move.

The second station, students were touching a tuning fork against a hanging ping pong ball, to see how the sound vibrations cause the ball to move.

Students also used a couple apps on the iPads to visual sound patterns. The app TuneTrain, allows students to trace tracks (think a rollercoaster) that create a melody. The higher the track, the higher pitch. Soundbrush is another great app for visualizing sound and allows students to paint line paintings or write words and it plays the lines similar to the tracks on TuneTrain.