Lesson Title: Nuclear Energy: Nuclear Decay
Author: Carol J. Shilling
Time Needed: 3.11 days – 45 minute class sections per each day

Engage, Explore, Explain, Extend, Evaluate

MATERIALS NEEDED:

• Nuclear Energy: Nuclear Decay Lab Protocol (, PDF)
  ESA 21 Environmental Science Activities for the 21st Century
• Time conversion worksheets (, PDF)
• Scientific Notation Worksheets (, PDF)
• Radioactive Decay Worksheets (, PDF)
• 200 dice or cubes (equal portions of two colors)
• Several large boxes (one for each group).
• Internet & computer access

OBJECTIVES:

By the end of the lesson students will know and be able to:

• Calculate remaining radioactivity after a certain number of half-lives have passed.
• Describe the relationship between elapsed half-lives and remaining radioactivity within the substance.
• Describe the effect of a daughter products radioactivity on the radioactivity of a substance.
• Calculate the total time of a Uranium-238 (238U) molecule transitioning from 238U to Lead-206 (206Pb).
• Calculate the percentage of time a 238U molecule will spend in each stage of decay.

AGENDA:

  Day One (Classroom)

• Warm Up – Scientific notation & time conversion worksheet I (Engage)
• Review worksheet, discussing difficulties and misconceptions (Explore & Explain)
• Read lab page 1 through 3 together discussing concepts and unfamiliar vocabulary terms. (Explore & Explain)
• Vocabulary matching game for prizes (if time allows) (Extend)
• Homework: (Extend)
  • Scientific notation & time conversion worksheets
  • Read remainder of lab in preparation for computer and experiential lab work

  Day Two (Computer lab)

• Warm Up – Quiz (Evaluate) – Scientific notation & time conversion
• Discuss using the internet as a research tool (Engage)
• Use the internet to access the University of Colorado Physics 2000 website referenced in the lab protocol. Conduct internet exercises indicated in protocol. (Explore & Explain)
• Homework: (Extend)
  • Students should visit the site Natural Radioactive Series, www.eserc.stonybrook.edu/ProjectJava/Radiation/ and run the series program for 238U, verifying the sequence of decay. Students should then run the program for Thorium 232 (232Th), Uranium (235U) and Plutonium 242 (242Pu).
  • Complete Uranium Decay Chain Time Conversion sheet.

Day Three (Classroom)

• Warm Up – Quiz (Evaluate) – Determine remaining radioactivity at a certain point of elapsed time
• Discuss probabilities and exponential growth/decline (Engage & Explain)
• Conduct dice experiments (Explore)
  • Part A – Straight decay
  • Part B – Decay with associated daughter decay
• Collect data using protocol data collection sheet (Explore)
• Graph data (Explore)
• Homework: (Extend) – Answer protocol questions

Day Four (Partial)

• Warm Up – Quiz (Evaluate) – Determine remaining radioactivity at a certain point in time.

Download Entire Lab Workshop (ZIP file, 308K)