Water Whistle STEAM Experiment
MATERIALS: -Cup -Water -Drinking straw -Scissors -Optional worksheet printout
AGE RANGE: Late elementary through middle school
What Is Sound? Sound is VIBRATIONS. Vibrations are small shaking or wiggling movements. Any time you hear a sound, something somewhere is vibrating. These vibrations bump the air particles around it and all those air particles bump into their neighbors until they reach your ears. What does that look like?:
But, not every sound is exactly the same, right? There are many things that change how something sounds from the material it's made of, how big or how small the vibrating area is, or how big or small the vibrations are - these are called variables. Variables are things that can be changed.
LET'S INVESTIGATE! Use the following experiment to test how one of these variables can change the sound that we hear.
TIME TO MAKE A WATER WHISTLE!
BEFORE WE BEGIN, LET'S DEFINE OUR QUESTION: How will the sound change when I lift the straw in and out of the glass? Your answer to this question is your hypothesis. WRITE YOUR HYPOTHESIS DOWN ON YOUR WORKSHEET. NOW, LET'SÂ TEST YOUR HYPOTHESIS BY MAKING A WATER WHISTLE. 1) Watch this short video to see how to create your water whistle
2) Make your water whistle and fill out your worksheet as you go. 3) Evaluate your hypothesis: were you correct? 4) Experiment some more: -What happens is you put more or less water into the glass? -How does the sound change if you blow lightly or harder? -Does the temperature of the water impact the sound? -If have different size straws, what happens when you change straws? -Can you play a song with your water whistle?
Water Whistle Science Experiment
Question
Your Hypothesis: Make A Prediction
Procedures: What steps did you take?
How will the sound change when I lift the straw in and out of the glass?
I think... ___________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________ 1)
Record your results: What did you notice?
Evaluate your hypothesis
My hypothesis was correct/incorrect because ___________________
_____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________
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