Playground Games

Students identify different wave types and their characteristics.  In this wave instructional activity students complete activities by activating tuning forks and interpreting data. 

Get a little batty with life science! This fun simulation game replicates how bats use echolocation to hunt moths in their native Hawaiian habitat. After creating blind folds and discussing some basic principles of echolocation, students...

Ride the wave to an understanding of refraction! The first in a series of two inquiry-based lessons challenges learners to create transverse waves with two different types of springs. As their wave hits an object, they observe the change...

Learning about waves can have its ups and downs, but a demo-packed tool kit has the class "standing" for more! Learners gain experience with several different wave types, organizing observations and data, and wave...

Things are about to heat up in your classroom! A kinesthetic lesson asks learners to play the part of the gases in the earth's atmosphere and interact with the sun's radiation. The focus is to learn the impact of the increasing...

Middle schoolers formulate hypotheses on wave behavior and test them. In this physics lesson, students compare and contrast transverse and compression waves. They determine the wavelength of transverse waves.

Students predict and test how the effects of velocity and force of an object or air on water affect the waves created. They diagram a water park ride using their knowledge of these effects to create their desired outcomes.

Fifth graders study the concept of momentum and its application by Newton in his studies. They view a demonstration and complete an experiment with toy cars on a racetrack that shows them the properties of momentum and how velocity and...

Students investigate the behavior and different origins of tsunami waves, and they then research and chart the path of certain tsunamis from recent history using the Internet, maps and firsthand accounts.

Sixth graders simulate primary and secondary waves. For this earthquakes waves lesson, 6th graders experiment using a slinky to gain understanding of how waves are created during an earthquake. Students record observations in drawings....