Final answer:
Tonya can determine the speed of sound in her classroom by conducting a physics experiment using standing wave patterns, plotting frequency versus wavelength, and calculating the speed of sound with the formula v = fλ. This calculation can also help to estimate the classroom temperature based on the known relationship between temperature and sound speed.
Step-by-step explanation:
Tonya is collecting data to determine the speed of sound in air in her school's colder-than-usual environment. Since the speed of sound varies with temperature, and the accepted value at room temperature (21°C) is approximately 344 m/s, Tonya needs to account for the fact that sound travels at 331 m/s at 0°C, and its speed increases about 0.6 m/s for every degree Celsius increase in temperature. Through a physics experiment using standing wave patterns, she can collect data, which can be plotted on a graph to calculate the actual speed of sound in her classroom's conditions.
An experimental setup could involve a tube with a speaker at one end generating a sound of known frequency and a microphone sliding along the tube to detect nodes and antinodes of the waves, thus determining the wavelength. The speed of sound is then calculated using the formula v = fλ, where 'v' is the speed of sound, 'f' is the frequency, and 'λ' is the wavelength. By plotting frequency versus wavelength and finding the slope of the best-fit line, the speed of sound in the classroom can be determined. Additionally, knowing the speed of sound allows for the determination of the classroom's temperature using the relationship between the speed of sound and temperature.