Build a Telegraph Tapper
Posted on May 3rd, 2019 by Mary Lord
Students in grades 4 to 8 or higher learn the basics of electricity and sound by designing and building a working telegraph system using batteries, wire, and other simple parts. They then use their telegraphs – one of history’s most important inventions – to send and receive messages.
Filed under: Class Activities, Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Lesson Plans | Comments Off on Build a Telegraph Tapper
Tags: Class Activities, electricity, Energy, Golden spike transcontinental railroad, History, Lesson Plan, Morse code, sound, telecommunications, telegraph, train
High school students design and build wind chimes using their knowledge of physics and sound waves, and under such constraints as weight, cost, and the number of musical notes their chimes must generate. They make mathematical computations to determine the pipe lengths. Links to similar activities for younger students included in activity scaling section.
Who says you can’t un-ring a bell? As a team of acoustical engineers and a biomedical engineering student demonstrate, “destructive interference” can can silence even a huge temple bell – leaving a sleeping baby undisturbed.
Pairs of students in grades 3 – 5 investigate sound frequencies and acoustic engineering by creating four different instruments – a shoebox guitar, water-glass xylophone, straw panpipe, and soda bottle organ. 
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