Sounds All Around Us
Put your hand on your throat and hum. Feel that buzzing? That buzzing is you making sound with your very own body! Every sound you have ever heard, from a barking dog to your favorite song, starts the exact same way: something wiggles back and forth really fast.
What You'll Learn
- What sound really is - How sound travels from one place to your ear - Why some sounds are loud and some are quiet - Why some sounds are high and some are low
Sound Is a Wiggle
Sound happens when something vibrates, or wiggles back and forth super fast. A drum skin wiggles when you hit it. Your throat wiggles when you talk. Even a guitar string wiggles when you pluck it. That wiggle pushes the air around it, and the air carries the wiggle all the way to your ear like a ripple moving across a pond.
Loud and Quiet, High and Low
A BIG wiggle makes a loud sound, like a slammed door. A small wiggle makes a quiet sound, like a whisper. A FAST wiggle makes a high sound, like a bird tweeting. A SLOW wiggle makes a low sound, like a big tuba. You can feel this yourself: hum a low note, then a high note, and notice how your throat buzzes differently for each one.
Stretch a rubber band between two fingers and pluck it. Notice how it wiggles quickly and makes a sound! Stretch it tighter and pluck again — does the sound get higher or lower?
Sound cannot travel through empty space with nothing in it at all, which is one reason astronauts in space use radios to talk to each other instead of shouting.
Flashcards — click each card to reveal the answer
What makes a sound loud instead of quiet?
What do all sounds have in common when they are first made?
Build a Rubber Band Guitar
Stretch 2-3 rubber bands of different thicknesses around an empty tissue box or shoebox. Pluck each one and listen. Draw a picture of your instrument and label which rubber band made the highest sound and which made the lowest sound.
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