Science Buddies: "Ask an Expert"

Interview

I am in 8th grade and for my science project I am working with waves and my question is what is the effect of wave height on different sea floors? I need some of these questions answered below for my interview section of my report and so I can get a better understanding of my project.
Thanks

Q:What is the effect of wave height on different sea floors?

Q:What is a wave?

Q:How are waves formed?

Q:What happens to a wave as it gets closer to shore?

Kaylee,

We experts here on the Science Buddies Ask An Expert forum try to help students by answering specific questions about their science projects.

The questions you have asked are fairly specific, but very basic questions about the physics of waves, not specific about an experiment you are running, or plan to run.

I would like to help you, but need to suggest that first you do some basic research about waves and wave theory. After you have decided how you want to run your science project, we can help you with specific questions you have.

I wasn't able to find anything on the Science Buddies web site that addresses wave theory in general, so I can't make a recommendation there. But I did find a few web sites you might find of help in answering your questions. Try these:

http://www.onr.navy.mil/focus/ocean/motion/waves1.htm

http://kingfish.coastal.edu/biology/sgi ... motion.htm

http://www.montereyinstitute.org/noaa/lesson09.html

Good luck with your research, and have fun with whatever science project you decide to do.

Thanks for the websites, but I was also wondering some other things...
For my project I am building a wave tank so I was also wondering how to build one

A few other questions are:

What are the main forces in wave formation?

Where do waves form?

Does a wave speed up as it gets closer to shore?

How does a wave break?

Thanks

Hi I am in 8th grade and I need to do more than one data table and graph for my science fair. My question is what is the effect of different sea floors on wave height? So far I only have one which has the wave heights on the y axis and the different sea floors on the x axis. How do I make a second graph with my data?
Data:
Mud-10.2(trial 1), 10.5(trial 2),10.7cm(trial 3), 10.5 (average)
Sand-10 (trial 1), 10.5 (trial 2), 10.2 (trial 3), 10.2 (average)
Rocks-9.5 (trial 1), 10 (trial 2), 9.5 (trial 3), 9.7 (average)

Measurements are in cm

Hi,

Perhaps you could do graphs for each of your three trials for each of the different sea floor types? You could also make a table of your data in addition to your graph.