Wave Equation Introduction and Unit Sort

Total time for presentation and activity: 1 hour

The presentation slides introduce student’s to the wave equation and provides worked examples to practice their understanding of changing units and standard form. It usually lasts around 40 minutes and students should be encouraged to make notes in their books and ask questions.

The unit sort activity puts this understanding into practice by exercising the wave equation with units and standard form. Therefore, it could be used as a mathematical or scientific task, or a combination of both! It is prepared for up to 48 students and usually lasts around 20 minutes, but can be tailored to be shorter or longer by introducing timed aspects, managing interaction and providing incentives. It can be easily differentiated to include other units or standard form prefixes and the teacher can also be selective. The presentation also includes an SI prefix table to aid students which could be printed off for classwork books.