Why You Need to Teach Different Types of Waves

May 24, 2021

2 min read

0

5

0

Waves are one of those topics that touch many different science topics. We have seismic waves in earth science, light and sound waves in physical science, and ocean waves in life science. As you can see, understanding different types of waves unlocks many other subjects. It also allows students to see how different science topics connect.

Different Types of Waves: Mechanical and Electromagnetic Waves

The first distinction students need to understand is the difference between mechanical and electromagnetic waves. While only electromagnetic waves can travel through a vacuum, both electromagnetic and mechanical waves interact with matter. Seismic and ocean waves are examples of mechanical waves. On the other hand, light and x-rays are types of electromagnetic waves. Understanding these very different types of waves will help your students when the vocabulary comes up in other contexts.

fridas and brgfx/Shutterstock.com

Different Types of Waves: Transverse and Longitudinal Waves

We also need to examine transverse and longitudinal waves. While students should know about transverse and longitudinal waves, it is most important that they know about transverse waves’ properties, including amplitude, period, frequency, and wavelength. These properties tell us more about electromagnetic waves and mechanical waves. Different types of waves have different properties, so you will want to compare and contrast them.

VectorMine/Shutterstock.com

How Different Types of Waves Interact with Matter

Finally, students will want to know about the different ways waves interact with matter, including reflection, refraction, diffraction, absorption, and transmission.

Feeling overwhelmed with all of this information on the different types of waves? I got you covered! My vocabulary pages go over all of this information using both descriptions and pictures. You can see every page here. They are great for printing out or using digitally. If you print them out, you can use them for a word wall or print smaller copies for student notebooks.