Hands-on Activity Using Jupyter Notebooks to Explore Waves

Learning Objectives

After this activity, students should be able to:

• Identify the parts of a wave (inflection point, period, etc.).
• Describe the effect of changing a wave’s frequency or amplitude on the wave’s graph.
• Describe the physical effect of changing a light or sound wave’s frequency or amplitude.
• Recognize that scientists and engineers need knowledge of waves to design useful products.

Educational Standards

Each TeachEngineering lesson or activity is correlated to one or more K-12 science, technology, engineering or math (STEM) educational standards.

All 100,000+ K-12 STEM standards covered in TeachEngineering are collected, maintained and packaged by the Achievement Standards Network (ASN), a project of D2L (www.achievementstandards.org).

In the ASN, standards are hierarchically structured: first by source; e.g., by state; within source by type; e.g., science or mathematics; within type by subtype, then by grade, etc.

NGSS: Next Generation Science Standards - Science

Common Core State Standards - Math

International Technology and Engineering Educators Association - Technology

Materials List

Each student needs:

• laptop/tablet
• Google account
• Activity Sheet
• Access to the What Is A Wave? Notebook File (.ipynb)

Worksheets and Attachments

Pre-Req Knowledge

A familiarity with graphing functions.

Introduction/Motivation

When you think of the word “wave,” what comes to mind? You might think of the waves in the ocean, or a sea of hands waving around at a baseball stadium. You may even think of light waves or sound waves—waves we can’t see! Waves are everywhere, and they carry important information about the environment. We can examine what this information is based on the wave’s characteristics. If we’re looking at a light wave, we can figure out what color the wave is based on the wave’s frequency or wavelength. If we’re listening to a sound wave, we can determine how loud and what pitch the sound is based on its amplitude and frequency, respectively!

Understanding waves and the information they carry, whether it’s a sound or light, is critical to designing instruments for using and manipulating sound and light. Do you listen to rock music? The electric guitar has several components that were engineered to make the sound loud and clear. Do you wear glasses? Your lenses were crafted to bend the light onto your eyes in a way that makes your sight clearer!

In this activity, we will discuss the background information that the scientists and engineers of your favorite band’s instruments and you or your friend’s glasses used when creating these designs. You will learn about what makes an airplane so loud and the ocean so blue. After this activity, you will have learned about how waves are modeled mathematically, and how changing the variables of the equation change the resulting wave.

Present the What Is A Wave? PowerPoint Presentation. See slide notes below.

1. Slide 1: Ask students to name different kinds of waves—they do not have to be “scientific”
1. Examples: ocean waves, sound waves, light waves, hand waves, etc.
2. Slide 4: Make sure you point to the inflection point on the wave shown in the figure.
3. Slide 5: Show different ways of measuring period (crest to crest, trough to trough) on the wave shown in the figure.
4. Slide 7: Mention that different frequencies in light waves make different visible colors (shorter wave = purple, longer wave = red).
5. Slide 8: This slide contains an image that shows the different wavelengths of light and their associated colors.
6. Slide 11: This slide contains a GIF that shows the effect of changing the amplitude, wavelength, and phase of a sine wave.

Procedure

Background

Jupyter Notebooks are interactive coding guides with pre-written Python code that students and teachers may run with the press of a button. This activity requires the use of a Jupyter Notebook using Google Colaboratory—a free-to-use program that may be used with a Google account. To learn how to use Jupyter Notebooks, see our Jupyter Notebook Guide.

Before the Activity

• Hand out the Pre-Assessment to students and have them complete it independently. Remind them that this assignment is NOT graded and that they are NOT expected to know the correct answers.
• Review the Jupyter Notebook Guide and complete the tutorials referenced in the guide.
• Make copies of the Activity Sheet.
• Make sure students have access to the What Is A Wave? Notebook File. They will use it in Google Colaboratory.
• You can either post a link on a classroom website or email them the file.

With the Students

1. Introduce the activity with the Introduction and present the PowerPoint Presentation.
2. Have students work individually (optional: Divide class into groups of 2 – 4 students).
3. Hand out a copy of the Activity Sheet to each student. Each student should turn in their own copy, even if they are in groups.
4. Demonstrate how to open and run a Jupyter Notebook as shown in the Jupyter Notebook Guide. Check if students have any lingering questions about Jupyter and encourage them to explore other tutorials in Google Colaboratory.

5. Students run the What Is A Wave? Notebook File and modify the values, recoding the results on their worksheets. If students are working in groups, encourage them to help each other if they get stuck. If students are working individually, they may ask their neighbors for help.

6. As students work, remind them that scientists and engineers often look at waveforms to assist them in design projects. Ask students to brainstorm how a scientist or engineer might apply their knowledge about waves. Prompt students’ thinking by sharing that waves are important to the design of radios, cell phones, Bluetooth, infrared cameras, Wi-Fi, televisions, etc.
7. Hand out the Post-Assessment to students and have them complete it independently.

Assessment

Pre-Activity Assessment    

Pre-Assessment: Hand out the Pre-Assessment to students and have them complete it independently. Remind them that this assignment is NOT graded and that they are NOT expected to know the correct answers.

Embedded (Formative) Assessment

Activity Sheet: To ensure students are reading the waveform correctly and engaging in the activity, have students complete the Activity Sheet.

Post-Activity (Summative) Assessment

Post-Assessment: Hand out the Post-Assessment to students and have them complete it independently.

Investigating Questions

• What is a wave? (Answer: A wave can be described as a disturbance that travels through a medium from one location to another location.)
• What kinds of waves can you name? (Potential answers: ocean waves, hand waves, light waves, sound waves, etc.)

Activity Extensions

Have students research examples of how scientists and engineers use waves and share their findings with the class in short presentations.

Activity Scaling

For younger students: After students complete the Jupyter Notebook activity, put students in small groups of 3-5 and have each group create a unique waveform. Then, display each group’s waveform and have all other groups try and recreate the wave.

Additional Multimedia Support

Attention: This Activity requires a Google account and use of Google Colaboratory: Google Colab

Copyright

Contributors

Supporting Program

Acknowledgements

This activity was developed under National Science Foundation grant no. EEC 1801666—Research Experiences for Teachers in Neural Engineering, CyNeuro Lab at the University of Missouri. However, these contents do not necessarily represent the policies of the National Science Foundation, and you should not assume endorsement by the federal government.