Sound Travels #5 - More about Vibrations

Feeling the vibration from our throats

As I was reviewing sounds and vibrations (the jumping macaroni) with the children yesterday, Kate came by and shared her thoughts with us. Is the jumping macaroni vibrations or a movement caused by the vibrations? Her question made us ponder and inquire more into vibrations.

Sound traveling through the table

Today, I asked the children if they could see sounds and they answered no right away and mentioned we hear sounds. Then I explained to them that we can't really see vibrations and Alfie said: "But we can see waves!" (from the previous experiment) I told him he was right but the waves were movements caused by the vibration, we cannot see sound waves but we can use things to help us see the movements that sound waves create. So today, to help the children understand that vibrations create sound waves which move through mediums before reaching our ears, we tried another experiment.

Each child received a piece of tin foil. Then they sprinkled little pieces of tissue paper that they had cut up on top of the tin foil. Next they clapped their hands together right next to the tin foil. Their objective was to move the tissue paper with the waves of the vibrations that came through their claps.