Gutters as educational wave tanks?

[doughpat]

Hello everyone,

I'm teaching a unit on physical oceanography to a class of eager 8th graders. I've got a little reef tank going and they are stoked to learn anything salty.

My next few weeks will include a few days studying waves. I'd really like to give them some hands on experience creating waves, but I'm on a teachers budget. I would like to demonstrate several properties of waves, such as:

Waves are created by the friction of wind blowing across the water's surface, and the size of the wave is correlated to wind strength and duration (fetch).

Waves do not move suspended/floating/attached particles in a neat-forward motion: these particles move in small circles, with no net movement.

Waves "break" when they encounter obstacles, such as a reef or a rising sea floor.

I'd like to build 3 or 4 wave tanks to let them explore these ideas. I'm thinking I need something about a meter long, maybe 3-6 inches wide. I'd like to use a manually operated baffle at one end to generate waves (or a fan, for the first concept). I was thinking about using sections of gutter with sealed endcaps--but I'd really love to have something clear on at least one side, so that they can observe a cross section of the wave.

Any other ideas? I guess I could build acrylic tanks, but I really don't want to spend a (another) weekend working on my class!

Thanks!
Ryan

 

[useskaforevil]

i wish my junior high teachers were this dedicated

 

[MrRyanT]

Not sure where to get the tanks, but I've also seen waves created by pushing a wedge down into the water at one end of the tank. Actually makes a pretty cool wave.

 

[deahtop]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11089346#post11089346 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by useskaforevil
i wish my junior high teachers were this dedicated

lol I was just thinking the same thing

 

[Slphappy]

I'd go with the acrylic... Maybe you can get away with 1 made out of acrylic and the others made from gutter material... Just a thought.

Anyway, sounds like a fun class. Good luck,

Todd

 

[hdyoung]

Like the others, I applaud your effort to develop your curriculum.

Could you maybe try to do a combination of rain gutter + acrylic on the ends? Use the gutter so you don't need to do much acrylic work, and cap the ends with acrylic pieces. You might get acrylic to stick to plastic gutter material using weldon or another acrylic cement. Or you could just use silicone. Even though it does not stick to acrylic, you won't t have much system pressure.

I think there is a good chance the weldon would work, though.

Here is another idea. You could use the gutter with endcaps, but cut out most of the endcap material, then cut acrylic pieces so they just fit into the gutter. Put the acrylic pieces against the ends, inside of the "opened-up" endcaps, then silicone or weldon them into place.

It's not an instant solution, but it would be faster then constructing it from all acrylic sheet.

 

[tank o tang]

Maybe a clear rubbermaid container.

 

[Rosseau]

Very cool!

Not that this helps you much, but here is what Bill Nye did!

Oregon... I'm pretty sure he lives in Seattle

We use clear plastic tubing for taking lake sediment cores. We then cut these in half, generally with a dremel (or if you're lucky more sophisticated gear). If you're able to find this tubing in a sufficient diameter you could easily make a few troughs.

Also, for a physical limnology lab I once used 10G glass tanks to simulate internal waves and stratification in a lake. Though, this isn't at all what you want... Just me blabbing on.


Good luck.