The Arizona STEM Acceleration Project

Making Waves

Making Waves

A Middle School/High School STEM Lesson

Susan Brown

October 15th, 2023

Notes for teachers

• Making a wave machine can be constructed many different ways to test variables.
• I make four machines that each class helps with (different lengths between skewers and different masses)
• This takes me five periods of students working on four machines. Each class period has a specific job: Measuring, putting dots on skewers, taping completed rods, etc.
• Lesson will take one to three 50 minute class periods depending if you have students build machine or just work with it.
• Students will explore variables that impact waves.

List of Materials

• Dots candy
• Skewers
• Clamps
• Ring stand or other structure to hold machine. Chairs or stools work too.
• Duct tape
• Rulers
• Sharpies

Standards

• 7.P3U1.3 Changing the movement of an object requires a net force to be acting on it.
• 8.P4U1.3 Construct an explanation on how energy can be transferred from one energy store to another.
• 8.P4U1.4 Develop and use mathematical models to explain wave characteristics and interactions.
• 8.P4U1.4 The total amount of energy in a closed system is always the same but can be transferred from one energy store to another during an event.

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Crosscutting Concepts:�Patterns; Cause and Effect; Scale, Proportion and Quantity; Systems and System Models; Energy and Matter; Structure and Function; Stability and Change4

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Background Information:

Objects can have stored energy (that is, the ability to make things change) either because of their chemical composition (as in fuels and batteries), their movement, their temperature, their position in a gravitational or other field, or because of compression or distortion of an elastic material. 2 (p. 23) Energy can be stored by lifting an object higher above the ground. When it is released and falls, this energy is stored in its motion. When an object is heated it has more energy than when it is cold. An object at a higher temperature heats the surroundings or cooler objects in contact with it until they are all at the same temperature. How quickly this happens depends on the kind of material which is heated and on the materials between them (the extent to which they are thermal insulators or conductors). The chemicals in the cells of a battery store energy which is released when the battery is connected so that an electric current flows, transferring energy to other components in the circuit and on to the environment. Energy can be transferred by radiation, as sound in air or light in air or a vacuum. Many processes and phenomena are described in terms of energy exchanges, from the growth of plants to the weather. The transfer of energy in making things happen almost always results in some energy being shared more widely, heating more atoms and molecules and spreading out by conduction or radiation. The process cannot be reversed and the energy of the random movement of particles cannot as easily be used. Thus, some energy is dissipated.2 (p. 23) A simple wave has a repeating pattern with a specific wavelength, frequency, and amplitude. 4 (p. 132)

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Objective:

Today students will construct a wave machine and observe how mass, energy and amplitude impacts speed of the wave.

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Agenda (Day 1 Making the Machine)

1. Set out materials
2. Decide how you want to construct machine either before class and jump right into variables/each class make their own machine/have all classes help construct machines to use the following day
3. Remind students not to eat the Dots
4. If you want to skip this step and make your own machine, you can go right into the lab questions and manipulating variables.

Agenda (Day 2 Manipulating Machine one to two days)

1. Go over parts of a wave
2. Have students calculate the speed of the machine by giving them the formula or having them figure it out.
3. Have students change the machine to observe what impacts the speed of the wave.
4. Changes can be more dots/less dots, length between skewers, amount of energy put into system, change in amplitude

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Intro/Driving Question/Opening

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What impacts the speed of a wave?

Hands-on Activity Instructions Day 1

• Groups of 4-5 for each machine to build.
• Rulers to measure how out far skewers are to be placed.
• If building for all classes, have each machine be different so that students can see what impacts a wave (distance between skewers, number of dots on each skewer).
• Spend a day to set up and a day to work with the machines to answer questions/make observations.

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Hands-on Activity Instructions Day 2

• Determine speed of the wave.
• Students can move from machine to machine or manipulate the machine they are at.
• Lab worksheet Google Doc here

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Assessment

Formative (individual)

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Create a comic strip.

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Requirements:

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• The comic must have least 8 panels and include the following information:
• Description of the two types of waves
• How the wave energy moves relative to the particles of the medium
• Include at least one real-world example

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Summative as students work with machine:

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• Completed lab sheet
• Able to estimate lab velocity
• Describes what impacts wave speed

Differentiation

Watch wave machine video and share observations of what happens with more/less mass is added to machine (play muted)

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Remediation

Extension/Enrichment

Students can build their own machine at home with different materials (toothpicks and mini marshmallows) or manipulate other variables.

Explore if the property of the wave machine extend to a slinky.

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