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Home Concept Builders Vibrations and Waves

Concept Builders - Vibrations and Waves

A Concept-Builder is an interactive questioning module that presents learners with carefully crafted questions that target various aspects of a concept. Each Concept Builder focuses the learner's attention upon a discrete learning outcome. Questions target that outcome from a variety of angles using multiple difficulty levels or varying activities. The following Concept Builders target concepts in Vibrations and Waves.

Activities

Energy Analysis of a Pendulum

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To use words, energy bar charts, and numbers to identify how the kinetic energy, potential energy, and total mechanical energy change as a pendulum bob swings back and forth.

Frequency and Period

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To distinguish between the concepts of frequency and period and to calculate the frequency and the period when provided quantitative information.

Vibrating Mass on a Horizontal Spring: Velocity and Force

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To describe the velocity of and the net force upon a mass attached to a spring that is vibrating horizontally.

Period and Frequency of a Pendulum

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To distinguish between the frequency and the period of a pendulum and to identify the variables that affect their values.

Pendulum Motion: Velocity and Force Analysis

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To relate magnitude and direction information about the velocity of and the forces upon a pendulum bob to the location of the bob along its trajectory.

Rocking the Boat

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To use an understanding of wave properties - wavelength, frequency, period, amplitude, and speed - to analyze a physical situation.

Energy of a Vibrating Mass on a Spring

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To use words, energy bar charts, and numbers to identify how the kinetic energy, gravitational potential energy, elastic potential energy, and total mechanical energy change for a vibrating mass on a spring.

Period and Frequency of a Mass on a Spring

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To distinguish between the frequency and the period of a vibrating mass on a spring and to identify the variables that affect their values.

Vibrating Mass on a Vertical Spring: Velocity and Force

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To describe the speed, the net force, and the individual forces acting upon a mass attached to a spring that is vibrating vertically.

Wave Basics

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To understand basic concepts associated with the nature, the categories, and the anatomy of waves.

Matching Pairs: Wave Characteristics

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To use an understanding of wavelength in order to identify a wavelength and to calculate it if given a wave pattern and its length.

Wave Interference

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To understand the principle of superposition and to use it to construct the shape of a resultant wave formed by the interference of two waves.

Wavelength

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To understand the concept and mathematics of wave properties such as wavelength, amplitude, frequency, period, and speed.

Waves - Case Studies

🞋︎ Learning Goal: To predict the effect of wave properties and medium properties upon the speed and wavelength of a wave.

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