In this resource students will carry out experiments with prisms, polarising film and 3D cinema glasses to explain some of the interesting properties of light and their applications.

Curriculum links include refractive index, total internal reflection, polarisation

This activity uses a humorous video to raise a serious question: can science tell us what animals are saying, and interpret their emotions? The Bow-lingual dog translator claims to detect animal emotions by analysing bark sounds waves. Students use research evidence to decide whether the device does what it claims...

This video revises the order of electromagnetic spectrum (GCSE) and introduces the range of magnitudes of wavelengths and corresponding frequencies for each type of electromagnetic radiation.

This learning episode, from the Institute of Physics, looks at Melde's experiment. It uses the analogy of a standing wave in a stretched elastic cord before going on to introduce the idea of standing waves within an atom.

The activities include:
* Melde’s experiment
* electron waves in atoms...

This resource looks at how distance can be measured using sound. A brief description of sonar and radar is given, along with an explanation of the Doppler effect and the wave equation. Students then use this equation to answer a set of questions.

From the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), this resource explains the leading role played by UK scientists and engineers at universities, observatories and research council establishments in the search for gravitational waves. Gravitational wave detectors are expected to open up a new window on the...

This video explains the observations when two coherent light waves interact to form fringes.  A diagram is used to show that

λ = ^(ax)/_d, where a = slit separation and D = the distance between the slit and the projection screen, and x = distance between fringes. From these measurements...

This video introduces explains the difference between the phase difference of a wave (measured in degrees) and the path difference of a wave (measured in metres of fraction of a wavelength). 

When waves are coherent and have a path difference that is a multiple of λ, then the interference is constructive. ...

This video models refraction using a vehicle travelling from a concrete surface to a grass surface and shows how the forward wheel slows and so the vehicle changes direction.

A diagram is then constructed to develop Snell’s law, i.e., the angle of incidence (from air) is proportional to the angle of...

These diagnostic questions and response activities (contained in the zip file) support students in being able to:

• Recognise that as a transverse wave travels forward, the medium through which it travels does not.
• Describe the movement of each ‘particle’ of a transverse wave as the wave moves...

These diagnostic questions and response activities (contained in the zip file) support students in being able to:

• Identify the shadow made by an object

• Describe how light travels in straight lines

• Explain how shadows are formed

• Explain how light...

A Catalyst article about a brilliant new light source under construction in the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside - the Diamond Light Source. Diamond will be a source of synchrotron light. Many of the everyday commodities people take for granted, from chocolate to cosmetics, from revolutionary drugs to surgical...