Isoheight on Surfaces
Highlights of the activity
- This small group activity is designed to help students understand two representations of a scalar field of two dimensions.
- Students draw lines of equal heights on the surfaces and then use these lines to find how the surface and topographic maps are related.
- The wrap-up discussion addresses examples of scalar fields in physics, other representations of scalar fields, and the strengths of different representations.
Reasons to spend class time on the activity
Middle-division students, though familiar with many scalar fields in physics, sometimes lack experience in visualizing scalar fields. This activity introduces students to two representations of the same scalar field which they can compare and learn to move between representations.