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4th grade · Science · Unit 3 of 8

Sound

Vibrations, pitch, echoes and hearing

What your child practices

Vibrations and sound waves, pitch and volume, how sound travels through different materials but not through empty space, echoes and absorbing sound, how we hear, and how noise and sound devices affect people and animals.

Alaska content standards learning standard: 4-PS3-2; 4-PS4-1 · sound as vibrations and waves that carry energy

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Sound is made by vibrations that travel as waves through air, water or solids.
  2. Fast vibrations make a high pitch. Slow vibrations make a low pitch.
  3. Sound needs matter to travel through, so there is no sound in space.
  4. An echo is sound bouncing back. Bats use echoes to find food.

Example: A guitar string is tightened so it vibrates faster. What happens to its pitch? Faster vibrations make a higher pitch. Answer: it gets higher

Sound in Alaska

In the Alaska content standards, this is unit 3 of 8 in 4th grade Science, after Light and before Adaptations & Habitats.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alaska Department of Education and Early Development

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Which of these can sound travel through?

    🔊
    • only empty space
    • air, water and solid materials
    • only a vacuum
    • only air

  2. Question 2

    A shorter, tighter guitar string makes a…

    🎸
    • higher pitch
    • quieter sound
    • silent sound
    • lower pitch

  3. Question 3

    Is the sound high or low in pitch? Tap an item, then tap its basket.

    Sort into: 🔼 high pitch · 🔽 low pitch

    • 🐦a bird chirp
    • 🎶a piccolo
    • ⛈️thunder
    • 🐻a bear's growl
    • 🪈a whistle
    • 🥁a bass drum

  4. Question 4

    Put the steps of hearing in order.

    • 🥁your eardrum vibrates
    • 🧠a nerve sends a message to your brain
    • 👂sound waves enter your ear
    • 🦴tiny bones in your ear vibrate

  5. Question 5

    A stethoscope helps a doctor…

    🩺
    • make things louder outside
    • measure temperature
    • listen to sounds inside the body
    • see in the dark

  6. Question 6

    Ship noise in the ocean can make it harder for whales to talk to each other. This is an effect of sound on…

    🐋
    • light
    • the weather
    • the environment
    • magnets

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