Paper Cup Telephones
Third grade Physics lesson
Liaison:
Date:
Group Members: Mary-Beth Muchmore and Julie Kalos
School: Tobin
Teacher: Mrs. Burgess
Materials:
For each pair of children:
2 paper cups
1 piece of string (about 6-8 ft long)
handout (copied below)
Procedure:
1. Examine dried up sugar and salt from last time (hopefully there’s no liquid left!).
2. Today we’re going to talk about something entirely different: using sound to make a
telephone out of paper cups and string.
3. Talk about: amplification in general (just means getting louder; amplifiers on stereos);
listening through a wall with a cup in movies; through a paper towel tube (sound changes
in tubes); through a tube slide; today’s lesson.
4. Go through procedure and demonstrate sample one, with tautness etc.
5. Let them make the telephones and practice.
6. Answer questions on handout.
7. Distribute rubber bands and examine tautness with relation to plucking sound frequency.
This is like the string vibrating in the string and kind of like real telephones.
Handout:
Can You Hear Me?
Today we are going to talk about something called amplification, which just means getting
louder. When sound is trapped in a tube, it changes.
Hypothesis: I will/will not be able to hear the other person (circle one). Why did you
choose your answer?
Procedure:
1. Pull the string through the hole in the bottom of one cup. You want a short piece of
string inside the cup, and a long piece outside. Tie the short end of string into a knot
inside the cup.
2. Repeat for the other end.
3. With the string stretched so that it looks like a straight line, whisper to your partner
through the cup! (It’s best to whisper because if you
Evaluation:
Comments:
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