Unit 2: Waves

Instructional Resources

OAS-S: 1.PS4.1  1.PS4.4

Bundled Standards Analysis: Waves

Driving Question

• How do light and sound interact with materials?

Essential Questions

• How can we use evidence to describe the relationship between sound and vibrating materials?

• How can light or sound be used to communicate over a distance?

• How can we evaluate whether or not a design solution used to communicate over a distance using light and/or sound is successful?

Examples of Student-Developed Initial Questions

• What is sound?

• How are sounds made?

• How do sounds change?

• Can light be used to send messages? 

• How do mirrors affect light? 

Prior Knowledge

Each dimension in the Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science grows in complexity and sophistication across the grades. To learn more about the prior knowledge and skills students have developed in previous grades associated with the standards in this bundle, check out the links below.

Science and Engineering Practices 

Disciplinary Core Ideas 

Crosscutting Concepts 

Science and engineering practices Grade 1 build on prior experiences. This bundle of standards engages students with the following SEPs: 

• Planning and Carrying Out Investigations
• Designing Solutions

Disciplinary core ideas (DCI) in Grade 1 build on prior experiences. This bundle of standards explores the following areas:

• Wave Properties
• Information Technologies and Instrumentation

• Influence of Engineering, Technology, and Science on Society and the Natural World

Crosscutting concepts (CCC) in Grade 1 build on prior experiences. This bundle of standards leverages the following ways of thinking about science ideas: 

• Cause and Effect
• Structure and Function

Launch Task: Phenomena Ideas

Phenomena are observable events that occur in the universe and that we can use our science knowledge to explain or predict. Engineering involves designing solutions to problems that arise from phenomena and using explanations of phenomena to design solutions. Instructional sequences are more coherent when students investigate phenomena or design problems by engaging in science and engineering practices. Read this STEM Teaching Tool Brief #28 to learn more about the characteristics of a good phenomenon or design problem for anchoring student learning.

Each phenomenon below includes teacher information resources (e.g., information about the phenomenon, data resources, videos, simulations, etc.). Due to the length or accessibility of the content, teachers should screen the resources and pull sections, photos, quotes, and data that are appropriate for Grade 1 students to ask questions, investigate, analyze, describe, evaluate, etc. 

Phenomenon: Sometimes we can feel loud sounds.

Vibrations from sound waves can cause matter to move. Students can observe sound making different materials vibrate while watching these videos on musical vibrations, sound interacting with a speaker, or a frog making sounds while in a pond. Students can also investigate when sounds make matter vibrate by placing their hand gently on their throat when humming or by holding a piece of paper near a speaker making sound. Investigations can also include how vibrating materials make sounds such as plucking a stretched string or rubber band, or gently tapping on various sizes of tuning forks. Students collect data about what they observe. 

Phenomenon: Tornado sirens, railroad crossings, and emergency vehicles all communicate information without using words.

People can use light or sound to communicate over a distance. Students can identify devices that communicate signals to keep people safe, such as crosswalk signs, railroad crossings, emergency vehicles, traffic lights, and tornado sirens. Videos, such as “Communicating with Light and Sound”, “Native American Fancy Dance” and/or whistle commands for dogs can also be used to show other ways sound and light are used to communicate information over a distance. Using provided tools and materials, students can design and build a device that uses light or sound to solve a problem of communicating over a distance.

Engagement Strategies 

• Educators can leverage the Student Actions and Teacher Actions found in the Waves  bundled standards analysis for specific ways of engaging students with these science ideas.

• This example of an elementary science cycle of learning can support educators in developing coherent sequences of learning.

• A Driving Question Board can be used to encourage students to share their wonderings and organize students' thoughts throughout learning. More strategies that support students with figuring out science ideas can be found within the Science Engagement Strategies section of the Framework. 

What It Looks Like in the Classroom

In science and engineering, evidence-based effective instruction focuses on students engaging in science and engineering investigations and design to explain phenomena or develop solutions to a problem. This section reflects a science cycle of learning that supports implementing the identified standards within this unit.

"What It Looks Like in the Classroom" is broken into Narrative Parts, written around the different Essential Questions listed at the top. Each Narrative Part includes examples for how to integrate the science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts for each standard, and includes examples of evidence teachers can gather from students that provides information about what they do and do not understand.

Narrative Part 1 of 2

Essential Question: How can we use evidence to describe the relationship between sound and vibrating materials? 

OAS-S: 

 3-Dimensional Narrative

Evidence of Understanding 

Provide students with opportunities to investigate a phenomenon to gather observational data.

Introduce students to different scenarios (phenomena) that illustrate matter vibrating to make sounds or how sounds can cause matter to vibrate (e.g., musical vibrations, sound and speakers). Educators can support students with investigating how sound interacts with materials through hands-on experiences (e.g., tapping on tuning forks, plucking a string or rubber band, hand on personal larynx or mouth while humming). Students can collaboratively plan and conduct multiple investigations to collect observational data (e.g., sound is loud, soft, high or low, beat is fast or slow, ). Teachers can support students with planning investigations by helping them identify materials to be used, how the materials will be made to vibrate to make sound, how resulting sounds will be observed and described, what sounds will be used to make materials vibrate, or how they will determine that a material is vibrating. 

• Investigation plans include materials students will use and what they are going to do/observe.

• Data includes student observations of vibrating materials producing sound and when sound makes materials vibrate.

Provide students with opportunities to share observations and what they think may be causing the phenomenon they observed.

Students share their observations from the different investigations and their initial ideas about the relationship between vibrating materials and sound (e.g., when the speaker is turned on, the paper in front of it moves). Educators can facilitate discussion by using the “How I Know It” instructional strategy. Collaborative discussions will support students with using their observations as evidence to describe cause and effect relationships between vibrations and sound: (1) vibrating materials produce sound, (2) sound can make materials vibrate and (3) when the vibrations stop so does the sound. 

• Observations are used as evidence to support student thinking.

• Statements accurately describe the connection of sound and the movement of materials.

Provide opportunities for guided and independent practice to help students with reinforcing accurate science ideas.

Educators can provide students with the opportunity to practice the relationship between sound and vibrating materials by engaging students in related investigations. Students can help plan these investigations by identifying materials in the classroom or playground which might make a sound when tapping on them or materials which might move when  placed near a speaker making sound. These new investigations can be done independently, in pairs, or small groups, while the teacher listens to student discussions and provides guidance when needed. 

• Independent practice uses learnings associated with sound and vibrations. 

Narrative Part 2 of 2

Essential Question: How can light or sound be used to communicate over a distance? How can we evaluate the success of a solution designed to communicate over a distance using light and/or sound?

OAS-S: 

3-Dimensional Narrative

Evidence of Understanding

Ask students to share their initial ideas/questions for solving a problem.

People use a variety of light or sound devices to communicate over distances. Using text, images, or video, educators can introduce students to a real-world problem (e.g., traffic lights are used for safety on the roads, smoke detectors alert us to smoke dangers, tornado sirens signal people to take shelter from storms), then ask students to share ideas for how humans could use sound or light to solve other problems (e.g., crossing the street, communicating between rooms).

• Problems can be accurately identified and described. 

Provide students with opportunities to research the problem and develop solutions/prototypes.

Once students are familiar with how sound and light interact with different materials, they can leverage those science ideas to design a device which will allow them to communicate over a distance. (See Grade 1 Light Bundle to help students understand how light interacts with materials prior to students being expected to build communication devices with light.) Before students begin designing a device, teachers can identify the tools and materials students may use. Students can then work collaboratively to design a device which uses sound or light to communicate. Example devices could include, using a light source to send signals (e.g., stop lights, crosswalk lights, emergency lights), paper cup string telephones, or using a drum to create beat patterns. Students can share their thinking with others through sketches and/or models (drawings) to gain additional ideas for solving the problem of communicating over a distance using light and/or sound.  

• Design only includes tools and materials available.

• Design uses light and/or sound to communicate.

Provide students with opportunities to test their chosen design solution, ensuring it meets the associated criteria.

Using the tools and materials available in the classroom, students collaborate to design and build a device that uses light or sound to solve the problem of communicating over a distance. Students can test, evaluate, and improve their device as needed.

Students can also describe how the design’s light and/or sound interacts with materials, and how this design solved the given problem. 

• Constructed device only uses available tools and materials. 

• Constructed device uses light or sound to communicate over a distance. 

• Descriptions explain how design’s light or sound interacts with materials.

• Descriptions describe how this solution solves the problem of communicating over a distance.