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OpenSciEd Unit 8.2 + Computer Science: How can a sound make something move? Student Edition
Author(s): NATIONAL CENTER FOR
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2025
Pages: 82
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OpenSciEd Middle School science program addresses all middle school NGSS standards. This comprehensive science curriculum empowers students to question, design, investigate, and solve the world around them.
- Phenomenon Based - Centered around exploring phenomena or solving problems
- Driven by Student Questions - Storyline based on students’ questions and ideas
- Grounded in Evidence - Incremental building and revision of ideas based on evidence
- Collaborative - class and teacher figure out ideas together
- Equitable - Builds a classroom culture that values ideas and learning of all
The OpenSciEd computer science units use a flexible “STEM sound board” approach that turns science, technology, engineering, math, and computer science up or down to match each lesson’s goals. Students experience just the right mix of STEM as they explore a storyline, discovering how science and computer science naturally work together. From modeling and analyzing data to designing creative solutions inspired by real-world phenomena, learners see how these fields team up to solve meaningful problems.
Unit 8.2 + Computer Science: How can sound make something move and how can we produce and detect it?
This unit on sound begins with students observing an interesting phenomenon: a truck is playing loud music in a parking lot, and the windows of a building across the parking lot visibly shake in response to the music. They try to explain what is happening at the truck speaker (sound source), the window (sound receiver) and in the space between. Students consider other sound-related phenomena. These activities spark a series of questions and ideas for investigations around the question, How can sound make something move, and how can we produce and detect it? This drives the work for the unit, with the first third of the unit focusing on figuring out how sound is produced, how it travels, and how it makes something move. The second third of the unit focuses on figuring out how different sounds are made by gathering and analyzing data collected using micro:bits and modify MakeCode programs to produce different sounds with a micro:bit. The last third of the unit focuses on figuring out how living things detect and respond to sounds with an opportunity to learn about how sound-based sensor systems help to monitor and protect animals.
The Student Workbook, Teacher Edition and material kits are sold separately.
Unit Overview
Unit Storyline
Lesson 1: How does sound make something move?
Lesson 2: What is happening when speakers and other sound-makers make sounds?
Lesson 3: What happens when sound moves through different matter?
Lesson 4: How does sound travel through matter?
Lesson 5: What is inside the ear that helps us detect sounds?
Lesson 6: How can sound make something far away move?
Lesson 7: How do the vibrations from louder versus quieter sound sources compare?
Lesson 8: How do the vibrations from a sound source compare for higher-pitch versus lower-pitch sounds?
Lesson 9: How do changes in loudness and pitch affect how a sound wave looks?
Lesson 10: How can we (re)program a computer to synthesize different types of sounds?
Lesson 11: How can boosting the bass in a speaker system help explain what was happening with the truck and the window?
Lesson 12: What helps us detect different pitches of sounds, and why do some sounds get harder to hear as people get older?
Lesson 13: What have we figured out about sound and what can we now explain?
Lesson 14: OPTIONAL: How can we use our unit's science, engineering, and technology to study and help animals that interact with sounds?
NATIONAL CENTER FOR
OpenSciEd® was launched to improve the supply of and address the demand for high-quality, open-source, full course science instructional materials. The goals of OpenSciEd are to ensure any science teacher, anywhere, can access and download freely available, high quality, locally adaptable materials. Though the goal of providing full course materials is still a couple of years away, OpenSciEd is releasing six-week units of instruction as they are completed and externally evaluated as quality by Achieve’s Science Peer Review Panel. OpenSciEd classroom materials are an open education resource and therefore free to download, copy, use, and/or modify. You can download the instructional materials free of charge at Access Materials page on the OpenSciEd website. In an effort to lower barriers for all educators to use OpenSciEd, Kendall Hunt and OpenSciEd have partnered to sell high quality printed books, professional learning and lab kits.