 Teaching Guide |
 Lightning |
 Evaluation |
You are out walking around the neighborhood with a group of friends and a thunderstorm pops up. You see a flash and then about three seconds later you hear the thunder. One of your friends says that means its three miles away. Another friend says no that for every "1-mississippi" count you make it is a half a mile away. So three seconds equals two miles (this particular friend isn't doing well in math). Still another friend has a completely different theory.
In this Curriculum Web you will search out information about sound waves, including how fast they travel and then calculate how close the lightning strike really was to your group. You will determine the distance using three different scales. The first two will be given and the third scale is one of your choice, such as "the lightning strike was ??? number of football fields away. Being the skeptic you are you don't believe everything on the Internet. Good job! You should never believe everything on the internet. So the final task will be to discover a way to measure the speed of sound and confirm you findings from the Internet research.
Click here for a concept map of the activities you will be doing as part of the curriculum web.
