What if you could challenge your first graders to create instruments they can play in their own “Show Me the Waves” musical show? With this volume in the STEM Road Map Curriculum Series, you can!

Influence of Waves outlines a journey that will steer your students toward authentic problem solving while grounding them in integrated STEM disciplines. Like the other volumes in the series, this book is designed to meet the growing need to infuse real-world learning into K–12 classrooms.

This interdisciplinary module uses project- and problem-based learning to help young children explore cause and effect. It introduces them to the concept of waves as disturbances that travel through space and substances to transfer energy. Students will draw on physical and biological science, mathematics, engineering, and English language arts to do the following:

Discover that there are different types of waves, such as water and sound, that come from different sources and travel in various ways.
Find out that eyes, ears, and skin respond to sound and light.
Use technology to gather research and communicate.
Design, test, and evaluate models to demonstrate how people experience and interact with sound and light.
Put on a show that combines voices and flashlights with guitars and drums they’ve made themselves to demonstrate how sound waves and light can be used to communicate and entertain.

The STEM Road Map Curriculum Series is anchored in the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Standards, and the Framework for 21st Century Learning. In-depth and flexible, Influence of Waves can be used as a whole unit or in part to meet the needs of districts, schools, and teachers who are charting a course toward an integrated STEM approach.