Worksheet

Five Sample Panes for the Room by the Highway

Grade 8 waves practice: sunlight and sound tests on five window panes model how materials reflect, absorb or transmit light and sound.

Grade 8ScienceInteractive · Printable

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Single worksheet
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1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
11 questions
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Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 8
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use light data to find the shares of sunlight a pane reflects, absorbs and transmits.
Students compare how the same materials transmit low and high sounds.
Students argue from evidence that a material can treat light and sound waves differently.

How to use

Read the passage together and sketch the three paths a wave can take at a pane, then let students work through both tables on their own.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

MS-PS4-2

Model how light and sound waves are reflected, absorbed or transmitted through different materials.

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Five Sample Panes for the Room by the Highway

Test how windows reflect, absorb and transmit sunlight and traffic sound.

Part 1: The sunlight test

Read the passage and Table 1, then answer questions 1 to 5.

Choosing New Windows for Room 214

1Room 214 at Corbin Ridge Middle School faces west, about 40 m from a six-lane highway. Students there have two complaints. The deep rumble of trucks makes it hard to hear class discussions, and on sunny afternoons glare off the whiteboard makes the room bright and warm. The school district plans to replace the windows next summer, so science teacher Ms. Odile Fairbanks asked her eighth graders to test five sample panes that the window company sent. Each sample is 30 cm on a side.

2Ms. Fairbanks reminded the class that light and sound are both waves that carry energy. When a wave reaches a pane, part of it can be reflected back, part can be absorbed by the material and part can be transmitted through it. In this model, the reflected, absorbed and transmitted parts add up to 100% of the wave that arrives. Light energy that a material absorbs warms the material.

3The five samples were a clear pane of plain glass 3 mm thick, a tinted pane of the same glass with a gray dye in it, a clear 3 mm pane covered with a mirror-like film, a double pane made of two clear 3 mm panes with a 12 mm air gap between them, and a laminated pane made of two sheets of glass glued to a soft plastic layer, 6 mm thick in all.

4For the light test, students Thandiwe Marsh and Rory Vasquez-Lund built a plywood box, painted black inside, with a 30 cm square hole in one side. A light meter on the floor of the box faced the hole. On a clear day near noon, they set the box in the school courtyard with the hole facing the sun. They first measured the light with the hole open, then taped each sample over the hole and measured again, finishing in 30 minutes so the sun barely moved. A stick-on thermometer on the outside of each pane showed its temperature after 15 minutes in the sun. The air was 24 °C. The percent of light each pane reflects came from the company's data sheet.

5For the sound test, the class lined the same box with foam and moved it to the quiet band room. A sound meter sat inside, and a speaker 1 m outside the hole played two sounds at 80 dB: a low hum like truck engines and a high tone like squealing brakes. The speaker's distance and volume and the meter's place stayed the same for every pane, and each reading in Table 2 is the average of three trials.

Table 1: Sunlight Test (air at 24 °C)
Hole covered by	Light inside (lux)	Reflected (%)	Pane after 15 min (°C)
Nothing (open hole)	60,000	—	—
Clear pane	54,000	8	26
Tinted pane	27,000	6	38
Mirror film pane	12,000	60	31
Double pane	48,000	15	28
Laminated pane	52,800	8	27

Use Table 1. Compare the light inside with the clear pane to the light inside with the hole open.

The clear pane transmitted % of the sunlight that reached it.

Use Table 1 and the model in paragraph 2. First find the percent of sunlight the tinted pane transmitted, then use the percent it reflected.

The tinted pane absorbed % of the sunlight that reached it.

The tinted pane reached 38 °C, the highest temperature in Table 1. Which explanation fits the data and paragraph 2 best?

A. It let more sunlight pass through it than the clear pane did.
B. It reflected a larger share of the sunlight than the other panes.
C. Its gray dye pulled warm air from inside the box toward the glass.
D. It absorbed the largest share of the sunlight that reached it.

The mirror film pane let less light into the box than the tinted pane, yet the film pane stayed cooler (31 °C compared with 38 °C). Which model fits both results best?

A. The film destroyed most of the light energy before it could reach the glass.
B. The film absorbed more light than the tinted pane, and absorbed light cools glass.
C. The film sent most of the sunlight back outside, so the pane absorbed less.
D. The film passed most of the sunlight into the box, so little energy stayed in the pane.

Use Table 1 and the model in paragraph 2. Sort each pane by what it did with the largest share of the sunlight that reached it.

Tinted paneDouble paneMirror film paneLaminated pane

Transmitted the largest share	Reflected the largest share	Absorbed the largest share

Part 2: The sound test

Use Table 2 and paragraph 5 to answer questions 6 to 11.

Table 2: Sound Inside the Box (speaker at 80 dB)
Hole covered by	Low hum inside (dB)	High tone inside (dB)
Nothing (open hole)	78	77
Clear pane	62	52
Tinted pane	62	52
Mirror film pane	62	51
Double pane	60	42
Laminated pane	55	44

Use Table 2. Compare the clear pane with the open hole.

The clear pane lowered the high tone inside the box by dB.

Which statement best describes the pattern in Table 2?

A. Each pane lowered the high tone more than the low hum.
B. The panes that let in the most light kept out the most sound.
C. The panes lowered the low hum more than the high tone.
D. The darker a pane looked, the quieter it kept the box.

The clear pane and the tinted pane gave very different light readings in Table 1 but the same sound readings in Table 2. Which explanation fits paragraph 3 and both tables best?

A. The dye changes how the glass absorbs light, but both are the same 3 mm glass.
B. Sound is a kind of light, so a pane treats both waves the same way.
C. The tinted pane was warmer, and warm glass lets more sound through than cool glass.
D. Sound waves pass around a pane, so its material does not change them.

Circle the two results that are evidence that the low hum passes through glass more easily than the high tone.

Clear pane: low hum 62 dB, high tone 52 dBTinted pane: 38 °C after 15 minutesMirror film pane: reflected 60% of the lightLaminated pane: low hum 55 dB, high tone 44 dBDouble pane: 48,000 lux inside

10.

The district sets two requirements for the new windows. In the sunlight test, the light inside must be at least 70% of the open-hole reading, which is 42,000 lux or more. In the sound test, the low hum inside must be 58 dB or less. Which pane meets both requirements?

A. The clear pane, because it let the most sunlight into the box
B. The laminated pane, because it passes both limits
C. The mirror film pane, because it cut the glare by the most
D. The double pane, because it lowered the high tone by the most

11.

Rory says, "The mirror film pane blocks the most sunlight, so it must also block the most traffic sound." Do you agree? Write a claim, give evidence from both tables and explain your reasoning using the words reflect, absorb and transmit.