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Lesson Plan

This lesson is designed to be inquiry based.  For the first couple of days, the students will go through a couple of activities to come up with the following questions:

Why is AM Radio reception different during the day than during the night?

What is the difference between AM and FM radio signals?

Understanding the constraints teachers already have in their curriculum, this lesson has been designed to be a concise, one week unit.

This daily planner gives a suggested schedule for the program as well as a brief synopsis of the daily lessons.  Lessons are designed for approximately 45 minute periods.  The pages that have the lessons on them contain just the outline of the lesson and any additional course material.  They assume some knowledge.  Links to several pages within this web-site are provided for additional background material.

 

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday
        Introduction and weekend assignment:   Students are challenged to find the furthest station they can receive on an AM radio at night

ACTIVITY (HW):  AM Radio Challenge

Daytime Radio Challenge 

Students will determine distances to AM stations and try to tune them in in class (or outside).   This will lead to the question:  Why is AM reception different during the day than during the night?

ACTIVITY (HW):  FM Radio Challenge

 

Radio Transmissions

Students will first reflect on the FM Radio Challenge.  This will lead to the questions:  What is the difference between AM and FM radio signals?

Discussion of frequency and wavelength.  (They are related by the speed of light.)

ACTIVITY (HW):  Have students calculate the wavelengths associated with different frequencies.

Radio Screens

This activity will show how different size screens effect different wavelengths.  This helps answer the question:  Why is the radar not solid?  It also leads to a nice analogy about the ionosphere's reflective properties.

ACTIVITY (HW):  Take home (or look-up on web) F-region data and hypothesize about why AM reception is better at night.

 

The Ionosphere

Electrons and Ions

Why do radio waves bounce off of the ionosphere?  How is it different from the rest of the atmosphere?

Exploring the Ionosphere

The Incoherent Scattering Radar

Examination of Haystack Data