Ben Newsome, right, shows Mateus Lopez how to model a soundwave with a Slinky. (Annie Ropeik/KUCB)

Kids in the Unalaska Public Library’s summer reading program got an earful last Friday -- when they linked up with a teacher in Australia to learn about the science of sound. KUCB’s Annie Ropeik has the story.

Here’s what you get when you try to turn a drinking straw into a kazoo:

[sound of kazoos and laughter]
Kids: How do you do that?

It sounds pretty silly -- but last Friday’s edition of the library’s “Fizz Boom Read!” summer reading program was all about silly sounds. There was special guest on hand to talk about them:

Ben Newsome: Hi guys, my name’s Ben. We’re gonna do some science stuff.

That’s Ben Newsome, the director of Fizzics Education. It’s an interactive teaching company based in Australia. Newsome came to Unalaska by videoconference, to give the library kids a crash course in soundwaves and vibrations. He might have been far away, but he used examples kids in Alaska could relate to:

Newsome: If there’s an earthquake … the shaking in the ground where you are could be detected all the way through solid ground where I am in Australia.

But what is a vibration? The kids used a Slinky to find out.

[Slinky sounds]
Mateus Lopez: Go, Teegan.
Newsome: Exactly.
Mateus: Now go back...

Teegan Joosey and Mateus Lopez stretched the Slinky out across the room and shook it up and down while they moved closer and further from each other to make different waves.

Newsome: So you can see that you can have a wave that can be short, or you can have a soundwave that can be long. Now -- which one do you think is a high sound?
Mateus: I’d say --
Hediyah Whittaker: The short wave!
Newsome: Makes the high sound? Well done. And now we’re going to prove it.

Newsome used a metal rod to create a long, high note, and showed the soundwaves on-screen with his iPad.

[high note]
Newsome: More or less waves?
Robi Harris: More or less?
Kids: More, more, more!
Newsome: Excellent. So here’s what we’ve learned...

This isn’t the first time Newsome’s company has dialed into Unalaska. Library assistant Robi Harris -- who’s coaxing the answers out of the kids -- has worked with Fizzics Education before.

Harris: "And what I try to do is bring in people that know what they’re talking about from time to time -- but it’s also good to get outside perspective and ideas, and he’s in Australia, and to talk to somebody in Australia’s also kind of a unique thing as well."

Kids in the summer reading program don’t have to attend to these Friday get-togethers. But those that did come for the sound class walked away with a new toy:

[kazoos]
Hediyah: I can’t.
Teegan: [panting]
Harris: Can’t do it? It’s okay...

That’s those straw kazoos we heard before. Getting them to work was a little bit of a struggle -- but by the end, the kids had figured it out.

[kazoos]
Harris: Yeah!
Hediyah: [giggles]

And if all of Ben’s tricks with invisible waves seemed cool, then the Fizz Boom Read kids are in for something even more mysterious this week. The summer reading program’s now halfway over, and next, they’re taking on the science of magic.

The summer reading program runs until Aug. 15 and meets every Friday from 3-4 p.m. at the library.