Stationary Waves - AAQ Pearson Applied Science

Complete “Ready to go” lesson with no adapting necessary!
New for AAQ Pearson Applied Science BTEC from Sept 2025 Specification
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This lesson covers:
•What stationary waves are, how they are formed and how they are different to progressive waves including what nodes and antinodes are. Followed by a short set of questions
•What are harmonics of stringed instruments including where the nodes and antinodes are, links to wavelength and fundamental frequency and pitch. Followed by student task where students draw the first 5 string harmonics, identify the wavelength, no. of nodes and antinodes
•What is resonance in the context of instruments linked to a swing analogy and an interesting real-life example of the Tacoma bridge collapse
•How to calculate wave speed from tension and mass per length of string with an example. Followed by a task where students use this equation and v=fλ to draw conclusions about bass strings and guitar tuning on frequency, speed and pitch
•What are harmonics of wind instruments (open ended and open-close ended) including where the nodes and antinodes are, links to wavelength and fundamental frequency and pitch. Followed by student task where students compare the harmonics of all 3 examples of instruments from this lesson

NO PRINTING REQUIREMENTS - you may wish to print the tables for the string harmonics task due to the large volume of content in this lesson and time constraints
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This lesson follows my usual style and contains:
•Recall starter to build retention of previously learned content
•Clear levelled learning objectives and outcomes
•Clear and modern layout utilising GIFS and Youtube
• Variety of tasks and plenaries with self assessment to assess progress
• ANSWERS INCLUDED!

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