Mississippi Science P.1.6B
Standard Cluster
Students will demonstrate an understanding of sound. Conduct an investigation to provide evidence that vibrations create sound (e.g., pluck a guitar string) and that sound can create vibrations (e.g., feeling sound through a speaker). Create a device that uses light and/or sound to communicate over a distance (e.g., signal lamp with a flashlight). Use an engineering design process to define the problem, design, construct, evaluate, and improve the device. *
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Motions, Forces, and Energy
Cluster contents
Standards in This Cluster
P.1.6B is a cluster heading. These are the individual standards under it.
- P.1.6B.1
Conduct an investigation to provide evidence that vibrations create sound (e.g., pluck a guitar string) and that sound can create vibrations (e.g., feeling soun...
- P.1.6B.2
Create a device that uses light and/or sound to communicate over a distance (e.g., signal lamp with a flashlight). Use an engineering design process to define t...
Teacher's field guide
What This Cluster Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students pluck a rubber band and watch it shake as it makes sound. They watch rice move near a playing speaker. They choose a message, build a light or sound signal, test it across the room, and improve it.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student explains that a shaking rubber band makes sound and that sound from a speaker can shake nearby rice. They send a flashlight signal to a partner across the room and change it if the partner misreads it.
Common Misconceptions
- Some students think the finger's pluck makes the sound, rather than the band's continued shaking. Others think the speaker must touch the rice to move it, or that flashes carry a message without an agreed meaning.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: On pictures of a plucked rubber band and rice near a playing speaker, circle what shakes. Draw one change you made to a flashlight signal your partner missed.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Pluck a rubber band stretched over a box; watch rice on plastic wrap over a bowl shake near a playing speaker.
Ask pairs, 'What should one flash mean, and how will you know your partner saw it across the room?'
Play signal relay: attach a paper shutter to a flashlight, send a two-flash code across the room, then revise it after a missed message.
Show a photo of a lighthouse, then test whether a flashlight or a clap sends a clearer signal across the room.
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Printable P.1.6B Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to P.1.6B, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
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Related Standards
- P.4.6C
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the properties of sound as a form of energy.
- P.8.6
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the properties, behaviors, and application of waves.
- P.5.5A
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the physical properties of matter.
- P.2.5
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the properties of matter.
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