Lesson Plan: The Huygens Wave Model
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to describe the processes of propagation, reflection, refraction, and diffraction using the Huygens wave model.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- identify point sources, wave fronts, and wavelets in diagrams of propagating planar waves and circular waves,
- recognize that the intersections of the wavelets from an existing wave front indicate the position of the subsequent wave front,
- identify the shape and orientation of wave fronts of a reflected wave from the wavelets produced by a wave that is incident at a boundary between two media,
- identify the shape and orientation of wave fronts of a refracted wave from the wavelets produced by a wave that is incident at a boundary between two media,
- identify the shape and orientation of wave fronts of a diffracted wave from the wavelets produced by a wave that passes through an aperture.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- the equation ,
- superpositions of waves.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- any calculations other than determining the ratios of the radii of wavelets from point sources at an instant or of the ratios of distances between wave fronts at an instant, where the wavelets and wave fronts are features of given diagrams.
