Student activities
Activities
Time to demonstrate: demonstrate how an event is broadcast around the world using satellites. Ask students how they would watch an event such as a Winter Olympics. Start by asking a student to represent the event by standing at the front of the class, then continue to build up the satellite network with the different components by prompting students with questions such as how does the television receive the signal? What sends the signal to the satellite? How does the video get to the transmitter? for example.
Radio waves and microwaves are types of electromagnetic radiation, like light. Light travels in straight lines and is reflected by shiny surfaces, like a mirror. Satellite dishes use reflection to receive a signal, then reflects it to a small receiver on the front of the dish. Use the light diagram provided to explain to students key words like the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection to allow them to carry out the following practical investigation.
Time to investigate: in this experiment (best conducted in a dark room), students will investigate the relationship between the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection. The will log their observations in a table before using the data to create a graph, allowing them to state what the answer is and how they know.
Duration
The activities are expected to last 60 minutes.
What you'll need
The following items per group:
Student guide
The student version of this resource can be downloaded here:
Satellite age - student guide.