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Sound
What sound is, how it travels, why space is silent, and the loudest sound in recorded history. Three ages, each with a text, an experiment, a game, a quiz, a printable worksheet and a teacher sheet.
Ages 6–7What is sound?Sound is something shaking. Feel it in your throat, see it make rice jump, and find out why space is silent.Ages 10–11Sound: vibrations on the moveHow sound travels through air, water and metal, why it is faster in solids, what pitch and loudness are, and why space is silent. With a string-telephone experiment.Ages 15–16Sound waves, decibels and the loudest sound ever recordedThe wave equation, how temperature changes the speed of sound, the logarithmic decibel scale, and what the 1883 Krakatoa records tell us. With an echo experiment to measure the speed of sound.