1-PS4-4: Sending Messages with Light and Sound
Also called NGSS 1-PS4-4 · Topic: Waves: Light and Sound · Physical Science
The Official Wording
Use tools and materials to design and build a device that uses light or sound to solve the problem of communicating over a distance.
Clarification statement: Examples of devices could include a light source to send signals, paper cup and string “telephones,” and a pattern of drum beats.
Assessment boundary: Assessment does not include technological details for how communication devices work.
NGSS Lead States, 2013 · Read it on nextgenscience.org · checked October 15, 2026
What 1-PS4-4 Means in Plain English
First graders use simple materials to plan and make something that sends a message across a distance using sound or light. They might make a cup and string phone, flash a flashlight in a code, or tap out a drum beat pattern, then test and improve it.
Children do not need to explain how phones, radios or the internet work. They lean on what they learned about vibrations (1-PS4-1) and light (1-PS4-2), and the design steps match K-2-ETS1-1 to K-2-ETS1-3. In 4th grade, 4-PS4-3 returns to sending patterns as information.
1-PS4-4 I Can Statements
- I can build something that sends a message with sound.
- I can test my design and make it work better.
- I can make a code of light flashes or drum beats.
1-PS4-4 Worked Example
A design challenge a class can run across the classroom with paper cups and string.
How can two friends at opposite ends of the room share a whispered message without shouting?
Set It Up: Two paper cups, about four meters of kitchen string, two toothpicks, a sharpened pencil to poke holes, and tape.
- Name the problem: one partner whispers a secret word across the room, and the other must hear it.Goal: hear a whisper four meters away
- Try it with no device first.Listener cannot hear the whisper
- Poke a hole in each cup bottom, thread the string through, and tie it around a toothpick inside.Cup phone built
- Test with the string hanging loose.Very little sound
- Step back until the string is pulled tight, and test again.Whisper comes through clearly
- Have a classmate pinch the string in the middle while you talk.Sound cuts out
The cup phone carried a whisper four meters, but only when the string was tight and nothing touched it.
Why it works: A voice makes the cup bottom tremble, a tight string carries that motion to the other cup, and that cup moves the air to make sound again.
Common Mistakes with 1-PS4-4
Letting the string sag
Partners standing close together with the string drooping to the floor
Try this: Walk apart until the string is straight and tight. A loose string cannot pass the shaking from one cup to the other.
Changing the design without testing
Adding more cups and tape before trying the first phone
Try this: Test the simple version first and write down what goes wrong. Then change one thing and test again to see if it helped.
A code nobody agreed on
One flash means yes to the sender, but the receiver reads it as no
Try this: Before sending, both partners agree on what each signal means, like one flash for yes and two flashes for no.
Where 1-PS4-4 Fits
Practice 1-PS4-4
Quick Check
- Why must the string on a cup phone be tight?
- Your friend is too far away to hear you. Name one way to send a message with light.
- What should you do after testing your design?