The pass along activity is one I developed shortly after attending a Kelly OShea workshop. I wanted to combine modeling with the strengths of white board speed dating and board walks. At the time I didn’t have the large whiteboards and for this particular activity I decided a piece of paper would work best.
Students have already done a reading on waves ahead of time (hopefully).
Part I: I ask students to draw in a pictorial representation of what a longitudinal and a transverse wave might look like.
Students are then told to pass along their paper. I predetermine groups randomly for this activity. Three is best, but if I don’t have a factor of 3 then I put the stragglers into groups of 4. It looks like this:
Student 1 -> Student 2 -> Student 3 -> Student 1
Part II: After students have passed along, they are required to look at the work done by their peer and explain, in words, why that person drew what they drew. Much like speed dating, this requires each of the students to get in the minds of their peers, but without the opportunity for their peers to explain.
Students then pass along again.
The third person takes a look at the previous two answers and then has to think of a way to model each wave type with their bodies.
After the three pass alongs, students get into groups, at this point each paper has been touched by the same persons. They discuss their answers and then they have to get up in front of the class and model with their bodies each wave type.
The physical modeling is great in that the kids are up and moving, but it also provides an opportunity to have a discussion about the model. 7th hour we had a discussion about whether or not doing the worm accurately models a wave (nope, the particle is moving across the room). Similarly, I had a few groups move their whole line down the room which brought up the discussion point about what a wave transfers and doesn’t transfer.
Afterwards, we will go out as a whole class and model transverse and longitudinal waves using an 8-step count.
Physics.Teacher.Momma. 