What is sound? Why does it travel in waves? And how can students see something that is normally invisible?
Those questions came to life in Mr. Bryan Russ’s science classroom at Oak Park Middle School, where an attention-grabbing experiment gave students the opportunity to not only hear sound waves—but actually see their effects.
Using a fish tank filled with colored water and large yellow bells made from repurposed scuba tanks, Mr. Russ demonstrated how vibrations create sound waves. When a bell is struck, it vibrates and pushes against the surrounding air, creating compression, or longitudinal, waves. Those waves travel through the air to our ears, where the brain interprets them as sound.
For students, however, knowing that sound waves exist and actually visualizing them can be two very different things.
“When I hit the bell, they can hear it, and intellectually they know what’s happening, but it still seems invisible—almost like magic,” Mr. Russ explained.
That is where the water came in.
By striking the bell and placing it in the colored water, students could watch waves move through the liquid. The demonstration provided a visible representation of what was happening in the air around them.
“It makes sound real to their eyes, rather than only their ears,” Mr. Russ said.
The demonstration immediately captured students’ attention. The bright yellow bells, colorful water and—most importantly—the very loud sound immediately captured students’ attention.
For Mr. Russ, that engagement is an important part of effective instruction.
“You can’t teach students who aren’t paying attention, and getting their attention isn’t automatic,” he said.
By transforming an abstract scientific concept into a hands-on experience students could hear, see, and observe, Mr. Russ helped his Silver Knights connect classroom science to the world around them.
At Oak Park Middle School, sometimes learning starts with a question—and sometimes it begins with the ring of a very big bell.