Tobinhttps://www.tobinscience.com/webquest-hs-waves.htmlStudents
How it works
1. Get your sheet
Your teacher gives you the webquest sheet (paper or digital). Every answer goes on it.
2. Open each stop in order
Each stop opens in a new tab. Use the sliders and buttons on that page — your answers come from what you see.
3. Come back here
Close the tab, tick Done, and open the next stop. Finished early with a partner? Play the bonus.
The webquest
Stops
Waves Unit Intro
Read the ear-on-the-rail hook, pick a big question, play Wave Maker and Wave Race.
Simple Science Videos: Waves
Watch three one-minute videos and fill in the blanks and tables.
Vocabulary
Flip the Word Wall cards and define 14 words in your own words.
Waves Parts 1–2: Wave Anatomy and the EM Spectrum
Run the wave machine and the calculators, click the spectrum bands, pump the air out of the jar.
Waves Part 3: Reflection, Refraction, Diffraction and Interference
Aim the ray box, squeeze waves through a gap, send two pulses, tap the interference tank.
Waves Parts 4–5: Media and the Doppler Effect, plus the Doppler Video
Race sound and light through media, watch the Doppler video, run the siren, read the investigation data.
Virtual Lab Bench: Wave Workbench and Light Bender
Measure a mystery wave, then aim a laser into glass and a mystery material.
Wrap-up: Back to the rail
Go back to the ear-on-the-rail hook at the top of the unit intro and explain, with what you learned, why steel speeds sound up while water and glass slow light down.
Bonus: 1v1 HS Waves
- Only when you and a partner have both finished every stop.
- One computer, two players: Red uses the W A S D keys and Blue uses the arrow keys. It needs a keyboard, so it will not work on a phone.
- Press Enter the Arena, pick a game, and play to 3 wins.
Teachers
For teachers
Post this link for your students
Students move through six free tobinscience.com resources in order: the Waves unit intro, four one-minute Simple Science videos (three at Stop 2, the Doppler video inside Stop 6), the unit vocabulary, the full Waves section (Parts 1–5: a transverse / longitudinal wave machine with readouts, the wave-equation calculator, the spectrum explorer with a data card per band, the c = f × wavelength calculator, a vacuum jar, a ray box for reflection and refraction, a diffraction gap, two pulses superposing, a two-speaker interference tank, a sound-and-light media race, a Doppler siren you can see and hear, and an investigation), the Lab Bench Wave Workbench and Light Bender, and a 1v1 review game for early finishers. Every answer comes from what the page shows, matching SPS9a–e.
SPS9 · Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to explain the properties of waves.
Time: about 80–85 minutes (two 45-minute periods, or one block)
Time: about 80–85 minutes (two 45-minute periods, or one block)
What students need
- One Chromebook or computer per student (the 1v1 bonus needs a keyboard and two students on one computer)
- Headphones, or low volume: the four videos are about one minute each and the Doppler siren at Stop 6 plays a tone
- No student accounts or sign-ins; nothing to install
Every stop at a glance
- Stop 1: Unit Intro (about 12 min) · Put your ear to the rail · Big questions · Explore activities
- Stop 2: Videos (about 10 min) · Simple Science: SPS9 videos
- Stop 3: Vocabulary (about 10 min) · Word Wall (unit intro) · Waves vocabulary
- Stop 4: Anatomy & spectrum (about 12 min) · Part 1: Wave anatomy and v = f × wavelength · Part 2: The EM spectrum
- Stop 5: Behaviors (about 12 min) · Part 3: Models from evidence
- Stop 6: Media & Doppler (about 14 min) · Part 4: Speed and media · Simple Science: The Doppler Effect (SPS9 group) · Part 5: The Doppler effect
- Stop 7: Virtual labs (about 12 min) · Wave Workbench · Light Bender
- Bonus: 1v1 HS Waves
Good to know
- The Wave Maker challenges, the Wave Race line-up, the endless practice scores, the interference-tank tap and the Lab Bench mystery wave and mystery material are randomized, so those answers vary. The simulation readouts (wave machine, spectrum cards, light math, vacuum jar, refraction angles, diffraction verdicts, pulse sums, race times, Doppler pitches, investigation data) are fixed, so those match the key.
- Stop 1 activities award hertz (Hz) points that are saved only on that device; students write their score on the sheet.
- The SPS9 video group holds six videos. The webquest uses Types of Waves, The Electromagnetic Spectrum and Wave Behavior at Stop 2 and The Doppler Effect at Stop 6; Wave Properties (the wave anatomy the wave machine covers at Stop 4) and Lenses (not in SPS9) are skipped and make a good extension.
- The page uses scientific notation and v = f × wavelength / c = f × wavelength the way the unit's notes and keys do; students write "3.0 × 10^8 m/s" (accept 300,000,000 m/s). Course conventions the key follows: sound speeds UP in denser media and light slows DOWN; every angle is measured from the normal (a 40° ray measured from the mirror's surface reads 50°, the classic slip the page names).
- The 1v1 bonus is for pairs who have both finished: head-to-head review of the whole waves unit. The unit page also lists Signal Lost, a 3D waves game; it is not a stop, but works as a second extension.
- The waves page also has endless mixed practice (Part 6), twelve worked examples, sixteen real-life cards, an 18-statement myth-or-fact set and a 10-question practice bank with a mechanical-or-electromagnetic sort that the webquest does not visit. They make a good warm-up the next day.
- Short on time? Stops 1–3 make a good first day and Stops 4–7 a second day.
- The printable student webquest and its answer key come with the Word / PDF webquest download. This page holds no answers, so it is safe to post.