Amazon Music: Careers Behind the Beats

About this tour

From studio to streaming, discover how computer science and people make listening to your favorite songs possible.

Amazon Future Engineer - Amazon Music Career Tour Sizzle

STEM + Career-focused

Students gain exposure to the careers of the future as they discover how professionals use computer science and science to record music, license songs, and build the front end and back end of the Amazon Music app, allowing people to stream songs from anywhere, at any time.

In this tour, students explore the following careers: Music Producer, Mastering Engineer, Lawyer, UX Designer, Front End Engineer, Principle Engineer, Software Development Engineer, Product Manager

Aligned to Standards

The 45 minute, interactive tour is aligned to Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards. The Teacher Toolkit includes a facilitation guide, worksheets, and other resources to support learning during the tour. Recommended for grades 4+.

Careers Behind the Beats is aligned to the following CSTA standards:

1B-IC-18 Discuss computing technologies that have changed the world, and express how those technologies influence, and are influenced by, cultural practices.
1B-IC-21 Use public domain or creative commons media, and refrain from copying or using material created by others without permission.
1B-AP-08 Compare and refine multiple algorithms for the same task and determine which is the most appropriate.
1B-AP-10 Create programs that include sequences, events, loops, and conditionals.
1B-AP-12 Modify, remix, or incorporate portions of an existing program into one’s own work, to develop something new or add more advanced features.
1B-AP-13 Use an iterative process to plan the development of a program by including others’ perspectives and considering user preferences.
1B-AP-16 Take on varying roles, with teacher guidance, when collaborating with peers during the design, implementation, and review stages of program development.
1B-CS-02 Model how computer hardware and software work together as a system to accomplish tasks.
2-CS-02 Design projects that combine hardware and software components to collect and exchange data. Collecting and exchanging data involves input, output, storage, and processing.
2-AP-10 Use flowcharts and/or pseudocode to address complex problems as algorithms.
2-AP-18 Distribute tasks and maintain a project timeline when collaboratively developing computational artifacts.

The tour is aligned to the following NGSS disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science and engineering practices:

Crosscutting Concept: Cause and Effect Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted.
Crosscutting Concept: Systems and System Models A system is an organized group of related objects or components; models can be used for understanding and predicting the behavior of systems.
Crosscutting Concept: Energy and Matter Tracking energy and matter flows, into, out of, and within systems helps one understand their system’s behavior.
3-5-ETS1-1 Engineering Design Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
HS-ETS1-3 Engineering Design Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
4-PS4-1 Waves and Their Applications in Tech for Information Transfer Develop a model of waves to describe patterns in terms of amplitude and wavelength and that waves can cause objects to move.
HS-PS4-5 Waves and Their Applications in Tech for Information Transfer Communicate technical information about how some technological devices use the principles of wave behavior and wave interactions with matter to transmit and capture information and energy.

Play it on Kahoot!

The fun, game-like tour will be available for FREE on Kahoot! to all interested classrooms and families. Students can play against each other while learning about the recording process and streaming app development. No account required.

Teacher Toolkit

Our Teacher Toolkit provides educators with guides, worksheets, and other documents aligned to CSTA K-12 Computer Science Standards and Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Use these materials to discover all the possibilities with computer science learning and careers of the future, and to set students up for success before, during, and after the tour.

Student Worksheet

Distribute graphic organizers for students to capture their biggest learnings and wonderings on the Amazon Music: Careers Behind the Beats tour.

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Word PDF
Student Worksheet Answer Key

Check your students fill-in-the-blank answers on the student worksheet.

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PDF
Facilitation Guide

Read instructions for setting up the Kahoot! tour with classes. Slide by slide script for delivering the tour to students.

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PDF
Key Student Learnings

Discover the key vocabulary and learnings covered on the music tour by tour stop.

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PDF
Certificate

Print and distribute student certificates to celebrate completing the tour!

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PDF

FAQs

On the tour, students will learn how songs are recorded in the studio, how streaming services license content from record labels, and how engineers and professionals around the world collaborate to build or enhance apps, like Amazon Music, to listen to our favorite songs. Along the way they’ll meet a music producer, mastering engineer, lawyer, project manager, product manager, UX designer, front end engineer, principle engineer, and software development engineer.

To learn more, check out the teacher toolkit resources.

Careers Behind the Beats is aligned to the following CSTA standards:

1B-IC-18 Discuss computing technologies that have changed the world, and express how those technologies influence, and are influenced by, cultural practices.
1B-IC-21 Use public domain or creative commons media, and refrain from copying or using material created by others without permission.
1B-AP-08 Compare and refine multiple algorithms for the same task and determine which is the most appropriate.
1B-AP-10 Create programs that include sequences, events, loops, and conditionals.
1B-AP-12 Modify, remix, or incorporate portions of an existing program into one’s own work, to develop something new or add more advanced features.
1B-AP-13 Use an iterative process to plan the development of a program by including others’ perspectives and considering user preferences.
1B-AP-16 Take on varying roles, with teacher guidance, when collaborating with peers during the design, implementation, and review stages of program development.
1B-CS-02 Model how computer hardware and software work together as a system to accomplish tasks.
2-CS-02 Design projects that combine hardware and software components to collect and exchange data. Collecting and exchanging data involves input, output, storage, and processing.
2-AP-10 Use flowcharts and/or pseudocode to address complex problems as algorithms.
2-AP-18 Distribute tasks and maintain a project timeline when collaboratively developing computational artifacts.

The tour is aligned to the following Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) disciplinary core ideas, crosscutting concepts, and science and engineering practices:

Crosscutting Concept: Cause and Effect Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted.
Crosscutting Concept: Systems and System Models A system is an organized group of related objects or components; models can be used for understanding and predicting the behavior of systems.
Crosscutting Concept: Energy and Matter Tracking energy and matter flows, into, out of, and within systems helps one understand their system’s behavior.
3-5-ETS1-1 Engineering Design Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
HS-ETS1-3 Engineering Design Evaluate a solution to a complex real-world problem based on prioritized criteria and trade-offs that account for a range of constraints, including cost, safety, reliability, and aesthetics as well as possible social, cultural, and environmental impacts.
4-PS4-1 Waves and Their Applications in Tech for Information Transfer Develop a model of waves to describe patterns in terms of amplitude and wavelength and that waves can cause objects to move.
HS-PS4-5 Waves and Their Applications in Tech for Information Transfer Communicate technical information about how some technological devices use the principles of wave behavior and wave interactions with matter to transmit and capture information and energy.

We do not collect personal student information on either tour. If a teacher does have a Kahoot! account, they can assign the tour to their students to track their students’ progress, but individuals’ information is not shared with Amazon. During the tour, students will answer poll questions about their intent to pursue careers in STEM and their overall satisfaction with the tour. These questions are multiple choice and do not collect any Personally identifiable information (PII) from students.