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4th grade · Science · Unit 7 of 17

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.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 4.8(A) · sound as vibrations that transfer 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 Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 7 of 17 in 4th grade Science, after Waves & Codes and before Circuits.

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: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

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

    A fire alarm uses a loud, high-pitched sound. Why?

    🚨
    • it is quiet
    • it is easy to notice and warns people of danger
    • it is pretty
    • it makes the fire go out

  2. Question 2

    Sound travels fastest through which of these?

    🚂
    • air
    • a steel rail
    • a vacuum

  3. Question 3

    Does it absorb sound or reflect it? Tap an item, then tap its basket.

    Sort into: 🧸 absorbs sound · 📣 reflects sound

    • 🟫a carpet
    • 🟦foam panels
    • 🪟a window
    • ⬜a tile floor
    • 🔩a metal sheet
    • 🪟thick curtains

  4. Question 4

    A stethoscope helps a doctor…

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

  5. Question 5

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

    🐋
    • the environment
    • the weather
    • magnets
    • light

  6. Question 6

    A shorter, tighter guitar string makes a…

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

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