This inquiry-based lesson provides an introduction to waves by using water waves to explore patterns of amplitude, wavelength, and frequency. Students will investigate water waves in slow motion.
This lesson results from a collaboration between the Alabama State Department of Education and ASTA.
This inquiry-based lesson allows students to explore how energy is transferred through a wave.
During this lesson, students will learn the different aspects of a wave, including the crest, trough, wavelength, and amplitude. Additionally, they will learn that waves cause objects to move. At the end of the lesson, they will be able to develop a model of waves and describe patterns. This could be the first lesson into waves that can jump start other lessons on other types of waves.
In this activity, the students will use the “Anatomy of the Wave” video to learn and answer questions about waves. In the video, students will look at the anatomy of waves and learn vocabulary words such as crests, troughs, wavelength, amplitude, frequency, period, and velocity. Finally, students will develop a model of waves through abstract visual art to describe patterns in terms of amplitude and wavelength.
This resource was created as a part of the ALEX Resource Development Summit.
In this learning activity, students will gather evidence that spiderwebs transmit vibrations. Students will investigate how a spider reacts to vibrations in its web using a tuning fork. Finally, students will construct their own spider web out of yarn to show the relationship between the vibrations on the web and the spider's reaction to its prey.
This activity results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.
In this learning activity, students construct an instrument to demonstrate properties of sound. Students use their instrument to help model the transmission of sound.
This activity is an excellent video for introducing a unit on waves. This is a video of a rubber duck being placed in a container of water. The question, "Why doesn't the duck move across the container?" is posed at the start and end of the video. The purpose of this activity is to get the students excited about waves and thinking about the movement of waves. This activity can be used whole group or small group as a center activity.
This learning activity was created as a result of the Girls Engaged in Math and Science University, GEMS-U Project.
Students will discuss vibrations, frequency, amplitude, and wavelength. They will observe instruments, hypothesize how sound waves are created, and experiment with creating sound.
Students observe waves propagate through deep water in videos and animations showing that waves transport energy, not matter. Students can make observations to describe wave motion through the water. This is a great engaging activity to use to introduce waves.
Sound is energy that travels as a result of vibration. It can be characterized by frequency, loudness, and pitch, and it is measured in decibels.
The classroom resource provides a video that will explain sound energy, how it moves, and how it is measured. This resource can provide background information for students before they create their own models and conduct their own experiments. There is also a short test that can be used to assess students' understanding.
Students observe, compare, and describe waves, using videos and images of actual waves as well as model diagrams. This interactive lesson engages students in noticing the shape of (transverse) waves and learning how to describe and measure the amplitude and wavelength of waves.
A wave is energy in motion or energy moving from point to point. To describe the traits of a wave, there are a few terms you need to know.
Students will choose a term in the activity to display its description in the diagram.
Students will play the role of the audio engineer who monitors and adjusts the audio levels for a production. This animated interactive job exploration experience connects schoolwork with real work and familiarizes students with some of the skills involved in audio engineering. They will also understand the parts of waves and that the intensity (loudness or softness) of sound is determined by the amplitude of the sound wave.
In this activity, students learn about the parts of a wave, wave height, and wavelength and then draw and label a wave.
In this activity, students learn about waves by comparing and contrasting photographs and watching a hands-on demonstration. Students will gather around a pan of water. Demonstrate how waves of different sizes are formed by tilting the pan in different directions and disturbing the water. Put a cork in the pan to represent a boat on the ocean. Ask students to describe how the cork moves as the waves change in size.
