Musicians and Mathematicians

Knowing that many of our students shared an interest in music we looked for an opportunity to incorporate a musical context. 8 bottles, each filled with a different amount of water were placed on a table in the classroom. For the next few days, students were encouraged to wonder, explore and play with the set. We shared our observations and questions with each other. It was decided that the bottles should be placed in order from least to greatest amount of water. Once in order, students "played" the bottles by blowing air over the opening. When they did, they quickly realized that the notes sounded like a music scale just like the ones they had practiced in music class.

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