Overview
Students and adults alike listen to the radio with little thought as to what the FM and AM band numbers actually mean. This introductory activity will offer students some local context to radio frequency and extend their thinking to where those signals come from and how else they are used. Students will have a chance to tune a radio receiver and explore radio waves.
NGSS Standards
MS-PS4-1 Use mathematical representations to describe a simple model for waves that includes how the amplitude of a wave is related to the energy in a wave.
MS-PS4-2 Develop and use a model to describe how waves are reflected, absorbed, or transmitted through various materials.
MS-PS4-3 Integrate qualitative scientific and technical information to support the claim that digitized signals are a more reliable way to encode and transmit information than analog signals.
Materials
- Student computers
- Headphones
Keywords
- Radio frequencies
- Electromagnetic spectrum
- FM radio