LESSON 2

(Title) How Light, Heat and Sound Travel (Grade 4)

Slide 1 Lesson Concept: Learners learn that light, heat, and sound travel Learn the source. They perform
simple activities that demonstrate how they travel using

various objects

Slide 2 LESSON OUTCOMES

At the end of the lesson, the learner should have:

1 Described how light, sound and heat travel;

2. Investigated properties and characteristics of light and sound; and

3. Described ways to protect oneself from exposure to excessive light, heat and sound.

Slide 3 ENGAGE

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with
the heart. Helen A. Keller

Slide 4 Helen Adams Keller (June 27, 1880 June 1, 1968) was an American author, political activist, and
lecturer. She was the first deaf-blind person to earn Bachelor of Arts degree. Can you imagine life
without seeing and hearing?

Slide 5 In the previous lesson, we learned the different sources of light, sound and heat. We knew that
the Sun is the main source of heat and light. In this lesson we will find out how these forms of energy
travel. We will also investigate the properties and characteristics of light and sound. Moreover, we will
describe ways on how we protect ourselves from exposure to excessive light, heat and sound.
Slide 6 EXPLORE

Improvisation Time! - How to make an Improvised Wave Generator?

This teaching instrument is very useful for it explicitly shows the phenomena that indeed in waves,
individual particles do not travel. It is the energy that travels.

Slide 7 You'll need:

(3 m, 1.5 inch )garter, pencil, ruler

8.5-inch uniform bamboo sticks

cheap pearl beads (about 0.5 cm diameter)**, glue gun and stick***

Slide 8 Here's what you'll do:

1. Mark the entire garter based on the following dimensions,

2. Insert the bamboo sticks with the marks as the guide. When inserting, let the first stick pass over the
garter while the next stick pass under the garter. Follow this pattern until you reach the end of the
garter. See to it that the bamboo is evenly distributed on both sides of the garter.

Slide 9 3. Attach the pearl beads to each end of the bamboo sticks.
It is advised that you buy from a market where bamboo barbecue skewers are sold. These sticks are
almost uniform and have a pointed end which makes insertion to the garter easy.

** You can substitute this with dried seeds or even jelly babies!

*** You may also use epoxy here.

Slide 10 You may also use a duct tape instead of a garter as in this detailes YouTube demonstration, Scan
the OR code below, right. Your final product may look like the one below, left.

Slide 11 Learn more about the properties and characteristics of waves by reading the explanations
below. In the explore portion of this lesson, try to demonstrate these properties using your improvised
wave generator.

Slide 12 Most of us are members or if not, familiar with the scouting movement. We are always excited
to go camping, where we usually build a fire to sit around at night. We may broil bananas and sweet
potatoes, have hot chocolate or salabat and stay warm. Have you ever wondered how bananas and
camotes were cooked without touching the flame, why the smoke rises, or why water in a pan boils?

Slide 13 Heat can move from one object to another in three different ways: conduction, convection and
radiation. Let us explore these processes by performing the activities below.

Slide 14 CONDUCTIVITY OF METALS

Materials:
Coin (preferably older types); small piece of cloth, e.g. linen handkerchief, match, candle

Procedure:

Slide 15 1. Wrap the piece of cloth tightly around the coin, stretching the fabric tightly.

2. Light a candle, and arrange for someone to touch the flame against the wrapped coin for a a few
seconds. BE CAREFUL WHEN DOING THIS PROCEDURE, HAVE A FIRE EXTINGUISHER READY. IF YOUR
SCHOOL DOES NOT HAVE ONE, A BUCKET OF SAND MAY DO.

Slode 16 Q1. What do you observe?

Q2. Does the cloth burn? Why? Why not?

Slode 17 CONVECTION CURRENTS IN GASES

Materials:

Gas jar,

T-shaped piece of strong cardboard (as shown in the figure); small piece of candle; taper or a long piece
of barbeque stick
Slode 18 Procedure:

1. Place the candle in the gas jar and light it using a taper or a lighted long piece of barbeque stick. The
candle soon goes out.

Q1. Why do you think the candle soon goes out?

2. Re-light the candle, but now place the cardboard across the gas jar making a central partition.
Observe what happens.

Slode 19. Q2. Why do you think the candle is continuously lit this time?

Q3. Give at least two applications of this phenomena.

Slide 20. HOW FAST DOES SOUND TRAVEL? *

Materials: Large outdoor space, hammer, piece of wood

1. In a large outdoor open space, place a thick piece of wood on the ground

Slide 21 2. Walk a few steps away. Request a partner to sharply hit the wood once with a hammer.

Do you hear the sound at about the same time the hammer hits?

3. Move farther away. Have your partner hit the wood again. Repeat the same procedure several times
until you are far away.

- When do you hear each sound now? At the same time the hammer hits) Or does each sound appear
later and later, after each hit?

Slide 22EXPLAIN

How does Heat Travel?

Heat transfer is the process of transfer of heat from high temperature reservoir to low temperature
reservoir. In terms of the thermodynamic system, heat transfer is the movement of heat across the
boundary of the system due to temperature difference between the system and the surroundings. The
difference in temperature is considered to be 'potential' that causes the flow of heat and the heat itself
is called flux.
Slide 23 Here, we present the three modes of heat transfer between the two bodies: conduction,
convection and radiation.

Conduction

Conduction is molecular heat movement in action. In the previous activity, we observed that heat
travels on the wires.

Slide 25 Convection

Heat is transferred in a process we call convection. This is conduction between a solid surface and a
moving liquid or gas

Slide 26 Radiation

This fundamentally different process from both conduction and convection is based on the concept that
the substances exchanging heat need not be in contact with each other. This movement of heat
happens in a vacuum. Radiation is a term generally applied to all kinds of electromagnetic-wave
phenomena.

Slide 28 Nature of Waves

Waves are phenomena in which energy is transferred through vibrations. We can classify waves as to
mechanical waves and electromagnetic waves

Mechanical waves are characterized by the propagation of motions on material rities Electromagnetic
waves, on the other hand, are propadan electromagnetic field. Simply put, mechanical waves need a
medium in order to travel while electromagnetic waves do not. In this lesson, we will just deal with
motions of mechanical waves.

Slide 29 How does Sound Travel?

When you bang a cymbal, it vibrates. The air molecules around the cymbal start to vibrate. The vibration
gets passed through the air as a vibrating sound wave.

Slide 30 This helps explain why sound cannot travel through a vacuum. If there are no molecules to
vibrate, then there will be no sound. Sound can only travel through a material. It will travel through air,
through walls (and other solid objects), and through water and other liquids. On the other hand, a light
wave is not made of vibrating particles. It is a wave of changing electric and magnetic fields which can
exist in a vacuum.

Slide 31 Improvisation

Have you tried playing a telephone toy the one made of stings and cups? Try to improve it by
experimenting on the size, shape and material of "wires" and cup. Try to make a "three-way telephone".
Describe the quality of sound made. It is advised that you place your results in a table and explain the
effect of each variable.

Slide 40 Sound waves need a medium for transmission. Materials which can be compressed and
stretched are needed in order for rarefaction and compression- two characteristic movements of
longitudinal waves to take place. Sound cannot propagate through a vacuum.

Slide 32-33 The speed of sound differs in gases, liquids and solids. What could be the reason for this? Try
to recall the differences in the intermolecular forces and the closeness of atoms for each state. Speed of
sound in different media is shown on the Table below.

Medium v (m/s)

Gases at 0 °C

Air 331

Carbon dioxide 259

Oxygen 316

Helium 965
Hydrogen 1290

Liquids at 20 °C

Ethanol 1160

Mercury 1450

Water, fresh 1480

Sea water 1540

Human tissue 1540

Solids (longitudinal or bulk)

Vulcanized rubber 54

Polyethylene 920

Marble 3180

Glass, Pyrex 5640

Lead 1980
 5120

Aluminum

Steel 5960

Slide 34 The Elements of Hearing

The ear is our organ for hearing. When the sound waves reach the ear, the changing pressures of the air,
due to compression and rarefaction, make the eardrum vibrate. The vibrations are passed on to three
small bones inside the car-the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup. These are the smallest bones in our
body. These tiny bones pass the vibrations to the cochlea, a coiled-up organ filled with liquid. The
vibrations here were transmitted by special sensory cells converting them to electrical signals for the
brain to interpret.

Slide 35 What do we Hear?

Previous lesson, we learned that the frequency of can wave is the number of oscillations it makes in one
second. The human ear can detect only sounds ranging from 20 Hz to 20 kHz. Frequencies within these
limits are called sudible frequencies. As we grow older, our ears lose their sensitivity which could be the
reason why our old folks have difficulty hearing.

Slide 36 Sounds above the upper hearing limit is what we call ultrasound. Ultrasounds play a vital role in
terms of diagnosis. In pregnant women, ultrasound can be used to look into the condition of the fetus
inside the womb.
Slide 37 How does Light Travel?

Moreover, light is unique as sometimes it behaves like a wave, sometimes, like a particle. When does
light behave as a particle? When does it behave as a wave? In general, if light interacts with light such as
in interference, it manifests wave behavior. If light interacts with matter like in the photoelectric effect,
the particle behavior is strongly manifested. Light of higher frequencies shows more of a particle
behavior while light of lower frequencies shows more of the wavelike behavior,

Slide 38 The energy travels in the form of waves (similar to the waves on the sea but about 100 million
times smaller) a vibrating pattern of electricity and magnetism that we 'call electromagnetic energy. If
our eyes could see electricity and magnetism, we might see each ray of light as a wave of electricity
vibrating in one direction and a wave of magnetism vibrating at right angles to it. These two waves
would travel in step and at the speed of light.

Slide 39 Is light a particle or a wave?

For hundreds of years, scientists have argued over whether light is really a wave at all. Back in the 17th
century, the brilliant English scientist Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) one of the first people to study the
matter in detail- thought light was a stream of "corpuscles" or particles. But his great rival, a no-less-
brilliant Dutchman named Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), was quite adamant that light was made up
of waves.

Slide 40 This was a great controversy then and still is today. In some ways, light behaves just like a wave:
light reflects off a mirror, for example, in exactly the same way that waves crashing in from the sea
"reflect" off sea walls and go back out again. In other ways, light behaves much more like a stream of
particles-like bullets firing in rapid succession from a gun. During the 20th century, physicists came to
believe that light could be both a particle and a wave at the same time.

Slide 41 Types of Waves

With a partner, stretch the wave generator.

You will notice that the individual bead just moves up and down, perpendicular to the direction of the
wave. This is a transverse wave. When at home, you shake the dust from a blanket or rug. What have
you observed with the motion of the blanket or rug?

Slide 42 Another type of wave is longitudinal. This is best illustrated using a stretched spring or slinky. A
slinky is a pre-compressed helical spring. It was invented by Richard James in the early 1940s. It can
perform a number of tricks, such as traveling down a flight of stairs, while moving end over end. Check it
out through the QR code on the right:

Slinkys can be used to demonstrate the properties of waves. Waves travel along a slinky slow enough to
be observed, which is quite useful.

Slide 43 In longitudinal waves, the individual particle travels parallel to the direction of the motion. The
generated wave will most likely look like the figure below
Slide 44 Properties of Light and Sound

Sound and light both travel as waves. The properties of these waves differ quite considerably. Sound
waves travel a million times slower than light waves They have wavelengths between 1 cm and 10 m,
and will easily diffract around corners. Light waves have much smaller wavelengths, and only diffract
through very small holes. This difference is the reason why you can often hear things that you cannot
see, When considered as waves, the following properties are true to both light and sound.

Slide 45 One property is wavelength. This is the distance from one peak, or crest, to the next. This is the
same as the distance from one dip, or trough, to the next. For example, in transverse waves, two
successive crests or two successive troughs. In longitudinal waves, the measure of wavelengths, for
example, is between two successive rarefactions or two successive compressions. For a sound wave, this
corresponds to how high or how low a note sounds. For a light wave, it corresponds to the color of light.
The Greek letter 2 (lambda) is used for the wavelength of a wave.

Slide 46 Another property is the amplitude, which corresponds to loudness for a sound wave or
brightness for a light wave. Some waves are very high, while others are barely noticeable. The distance
the wave rises depends on the amplitude of the wave. Amplitude is the maximum distance the medium
(the material through which a wave travels) moves away from its rest position.

Slide 47 The frequency, f, is the number of crests or troughs that pass a point per second. This is
equivalent to the number of complete waves generated per second. The unit for frequency is the Hertz
(Hz also per/second), named after Heinrich Hertz, a German physicist who was the first to successfully
produce radio waves in 1886. One Hertz means that one wave cycle or one oscillation is completed per
second.

The period, T, is the time taken to generate one complete wave. It is also the time taken for the crests,
or any given point on the wave, to move a distance of one wavelength. It is indirectly proportional to
frequency.

Properties of Waves
Any type of wave, in this lesson focus on sound and light (let's assume they are indeed waves for now)
exhibits the following properties:

Reflection

The turning back of waves upon hitting a barrier, When energy, such as light or sound, traveling from
one medium encounters a different medium, part of the energy usually passes on while part is reflected.
To reflect a wave train, the reflecting surface must be wider than one-half the wavelength of the
impinging waves.

Refraction

The changing of direction of a wave when it passes through from one medium to another. It is the effect
of the different speeds of wave propagation in two substances that have different densities.

Diffraction

The bending of a wave as it passes through small openings or around barriers. Diffraction is more
pronounced when the opening, or aperture, or the barrier is similar in size to or smaller than the
wavelength of the incoming wave. Diffraction is a property of the motion of all waves.

Interference

Effect that occurs when two or more waves overlap or intersect. When waves interfere with each other,
the amplitude of the resulting wave depends on the frequencies, relative phases (relative positions of
the crests and troughs), and amplitudes of the interfering waves. There are two types of interference.
constructive interference and destructive interference.

Constructive interference occurs at a point where two overlapping or intersecting waves of the same
frequency are in phase that is, where the crests and troughs of the two waves coincide. In this case, the
two waves reinforce each other and combine to form a wave that has an amplitude equal to the sum of
the individual amplitudes of the original waves.
Destructive interference occurs when two intersecting waves of the same frequency are completely out
of phase that is, when the crest of one wave coincides with the trough of the other. In this case, the two
waves cancel each other out. Intersecting or overlapping waves that have different frequencies or that
are not entirely in or out of phase with each other have more complex interference patterns.

How Sound Travels?

Why do we sometimes see lightning but not hear thunder?

The lightning still causes thunder but it doesn't reach you even though the lightning is visible because
the sound is refracted upwards and is not audible on the ground. Under the right conditions lightning
can be seen up to 150 km away but thunder can only be heard up to about 15 km away.

Rumbling of thunder is due to reflection of sound from various obstacles.

Rumbling of thunder is due to reflection of sound from various obstacles. Thunder is caused by lightning,
which occurs when charges move from cloud to cloud or from a cloud to the ground. These moving
charges heat the air to such very high temperatures that the air molecules glow, giving off light. The air
is heated so rapidly that it expands violently outwards all along the lightning bolt, compressing the air
around it. Hence a sound wave is generated as sound is a compressional wave.

Why does sound travel further on cool nights than on warm days?

At night the air near the ground is cooler than the air higher up. Sound travels faster in the warmer air.
The section of the sound wave higher up travels faster than the section near the ground so the
wavefront is bent downwards as in the figure to the right.

During the day the reverse is true. The air near the ground is warmer than the air higher up so the
wavefront is bent upwards over the head of the listener as in the Figure below.
Astronauts cannot speak to each other on the moon without the aid of radio waves because of the
lack of air.

In one film, when the microphones broke down, the two astronauts put their helmets together, thus
transmitting the sound vibrations through the helmets. Sometimes, in popular science fiction films, we
see and hear an explosion in space which is incorrect as the sound waves, unlike light, cannot travel
through empty space.

Have you ever wondered why bats prefer caves as roosting areas? How can they fly in such a dark
area?

Animals hear at different ranges of audible frequencies. Dogs and bats can hear at a higher audible limit,
thus making them sensitive to sounds. Bats navigate and find food in the dark nights through a method
called echolocation which uses the reflection of sound.

ELABORATE

Come up with a poster showing how we can protect ourselves from exposure to excessive light, heat
and sound. Make sure it would be of high quality and can be shared in our social media accounts.

EVALUATE

MAR

Label the following parts of a transverse wave:

1. Which of these statements is true?

A. Sound can travel through a vacuum but light cannot.

B. Neither sound nor light can travel through a vacuum.

C. Both sound and light can travel through a vacuum.

D. Sound cannot travel through a vacuum but light can.

2. What causes rainbows to appear in the sky?

A. The refraction of light through raindrops.

B. The reflection of light through water droplets.

C. The radiation of light from the sun.

D. The adsorption of light by water droplets.

3. The following types of waves are transverse except one. Which one is it?

A. ocean wave swells

C. gravitational waves in interstellar space

D. sound waves in air

4. Which of the above waves has the longest wavelength?

A. Wave #1

B. Wave #2

C. Wave #3

D. Wave #4

5. In which method of transfer of heat do the molecules travel from the hot to the cold portion?

A. Conduction

B. Convection

C. Radiation
D. Irradiation