Making Waves: Exploring Connections Between STEM and Music

This unit is FREE for school districts!

Welcome to Making Waves, where students will learn about connections between music and STEM. Developed through a collaboration between the College of Engineering at the University of Notre Dame and Grammy-winning musicians Third Coast Percussion, Making Waves blurs the lines between STEM and music to bring out the best in students’ abilities to experiment and create, analyze and explore. In this unit, students will use online simulation and visualization tools to explore how the shapes and sizes of sound waves affect musical qualities such as loudness, timbre, and pitch.

Appropriate Age Levels
Grades 9-12

Examples of Key Vocabulary and Concepts:
Sound, vibrations, wave, amplitude, frequency, pitch, loudness, timbre, instruments, tones, oscillations, and tone.