Exam (elaborations) Student Exploration Refraction

Directions: Follow the instructions to go through the simulation. Respond to the questions and prompts in the orange boxes. Vocabulary: angle of incidence, angle of refraction, frequency, index of refraction, medium, refraction, Snell’s law, total internal reflection, wave front, wavelength, wave speed Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.) Two runners ran side by side, each holding one end of a horizontal pole. 1. What would most likely happen if one of the runners began jogging in knee-deep water? The runner would start to feel a force that is causing his feet to fatigue a lot faster than running on land since the water is making his feet put more force to run 2. How would this affect the direction of the runners? Explain. The direction of the runner will move closer to (the normal) which will obviously not be visible without a diagram. The degree to which the runner was running in on land will now become smaller, making the runner run in a different direction. Gizmo Warm-up Light can travel through many materials, or media. As with a runner on pavement or sand, the speed of light can change when it moves into a different medium. The Refraction Gizmo allows you to observe what happens to a beam of light as it travels from one medium to another. Turn off View wave fronts. Set Index of refraction 2 to 3.0. 1. Click Play ( ). Observe the ray of light as it passes from Medium 1 to Medium 2. A. What happens to the speed of the light wave? The speed of the wave decreases in speed after it passes through the second medium. B. What happens to the direction of the light wave? The direction of the wave gets closer to the normal. The bending of the light ray you see is called refraction. 2. Click Reset ( ) and turn on View wave fronts. A wave front is an imaginary line that connects the crests or troughs of a wave. The wavelength of a wave is the distance between wave fronts.