High Quiet Low Loud [PhET]

Distinguishing between amplitude and frequency with mechanical waves is a lesson that lends itself to a computer activity that allows students to modify wave forms. When students can see a visual representation of a sound wave while listening to the wave, and then manipulate the amplitude and/or frequency of the source, the distinctions tend to stick.

PASCO's Waveport plugin for DataStudio provided a great vehicle for such an exploration. But times change and PASCO has moved on to the powerful Capstone and flexible SPARKvue applications.

So during the pandemic, I ported my legacy "High Quiet Low Loud" activity from Waveport to PhET. PhET's long-lived Wave Interference sim and its newer Waves Intro sim can be used for this activity.

This one is easy to assign as remote instruction/distance learning (RT;DL). Whenever we did sound labs in in-person instruction, we deployed headphones: one headphone jack splitter connected to two more, which allowed four sets of headphones to connect to the computer. We connected volume controls inline for added comfort. You certainly don't want your classroom to be a cacophony of disparate tones and volumes.

High Quiet Low Loud [PhET] at Teachers Pay Teachers