Program Title:
Waves in Motion
Audience: 6th-8th grade students
Program Theme: Students will conduct physical demonstrations and sound experiments to understand
the anatomy and behavior of waves, as they travel through water and air.
Program Goals: Students will understand that waves are a disturbance that travels through a medium
from one location to another, as they explore wave properties through water and air. Students will
model and demonstrate the Doppler Effect. Students will recognize that studying the use of sound
waves by animals has influenced humans to develop technologies such as radar and sonar.
Next Generation/Common Core Connections:
Topic: MS-PS4 Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer
Dimensions:
Students are able to formulate answers to the question, “What are the characteristic properties
of waves and how can they be used?”
Students are able to describe and predict characteristic properties and behaviors of waves when
waves interact with matter.
Program Outline:
Activity 1: WHAT ARE WAVES? (20 min.) – We will explore the shape and behavior of waves. We’ll begin
with a water wave by dropping a large stone in a pond or other small body of water. Students will
observe what is happening, and will be asked to explain it in their own words by forming an original
definition for “wave.” We will then use a rope and a slinky to demonstrate the motion of different
waves. Students will label the different parts of a rope-wave and distinguish between different wave
types.
Teachers will be helpful in keeping the students on task throughout the demonstrations.
Teachers are always welcome to make connections to the classroom and other learning
experiences.
Objectives: Students will interact with waves in motion. Students will form and share definitions
explaining the basic properties of a wave, in their own words. Students will identify the different
components of a wave and label a three-dimensional rope diagram with vocabulary cards.
Intended Outcomes: Students will be able to give their own verbal definition of a wave. Students will
correctly label the different parts of a wave.
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Activity 2: DEMONSTRATING DOPPLER (30 min.) – Next we will apply our knowledge of wave anatomy
by creating and playing with sound waves. Beginning with a look at visual aids showing different types of
waves (water, sound, electromagnetic), we will explore how these waves are similar in structure and
behavior, and how they are different. The Doppler Effect is active in each of these different wave types.
Modeling how the sound changes as a siren is coming toward a person and then retreating, students will
engage in a running demonstration. Students will learn the definition of the Doppler Effect and then use
tuning forks and other props to demonstrate it.
Teachers will be helpful in splitting students into sub-teams and in ensuring that students are
using the tuning forks properly, to get the maximum effect intended for the Doppler
demonstration.
Objectives: Students will be able to explain the behavior of waves via the Doppler Effect. Students will
physically demonstrate the Doppler Effect with tuning forks.
Intended Outcome: Students will physically cause and experience the Doppler Effect, through the use
of tuning forks.
Activity 3: EXAMINING ECHOLOCATION (60 min.) – For the culminating activity, we will focus on how
sound waves travel through the air to the ear and then the brain. Depending on the location and
intensity of the sound, one can usually identify the direction the sound is traveling in. Students will also
learn about how animals make use of the Doppler Effect. Using bats as our model, they will mimic the
effects of echolocation by attempting to determine the location of nine sounds made by their partner,
at various locations around their head, while blindfolded. Then we will connect this information to the
anatomy of bat ears and noses, and how they have specialized structures for maximizing sound waves.
We will talk about how studying the use of sound waves by animals has influenced humans to develop
technologies such as radar and sonar.
Teachers will be helpful in dividing students into pairs, and in assisting with monitoring their
process, as we will be spread out over an open area.
Objectives: Students will identify the location and direction of sounds and repeat their experiment
several times. Students will be able to explain the role that timing plays in sound traveling to the ears,
and what happens when that natural process is interrupted.
Intended Outcomes: Students will complete a data sheet showing the frequency of their correct
guesses in identifying the directions of the sounds. Students will be able to explain how sound waves
travel to the ear and then the brain, and will be able to explain why they did or did not guess correctly in
different scenarios.
Conclusion/Wrap-up: (10 min.) We will lead a discussion in which the students are able to connect
echolocation with the Doppler Effect and explain the part played by the structure and behavior of sound
waves. Students will then be asked to identify two different wave types and explain how high- and lowfrequency waves play a role in echolocation and the Doppler Effect.
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Successful completion of this program will help support your students’ proficiency in NGSS
Performance Expectations: MS-PS4.A: Wave Properties
A simple wave has a repeating pattern with a specific wavelength, frequency, and amplitude.
A sound wave needs a medium through which it is transmitted.
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