Nature's Clocks: Finding an Isotope's Half-Life
Sim Lesson
Students use the Nature's Clocks simulation to watch a radioactive sample decay, then use the Tuva Data Tools to graph how the number of parent atoms falls over time and to find the isotope's half-life from their own data. Lesson Purpose The half-life is never printed in the simulation. Students discover it by finding the time at which half of the original atoms remain, building the idea that decay is measured by a fixed half-life rather than a fixed amount lost per second.
Radioactive atoms are unstable. One by one, and at random, they decay into other atoms and give off radiation. You cannot predict when any single atom will go, but a whole sample follows a steady, predictable pattern. In this lesson you will run a sample in accelerated time, then use the Tuva Data Tools to graph how many parent atoms are left as time passes. From that graph you will find the sample's half-life, the time it takes for half of the atoms to decay.
Topics and standards: Science, Energy, Chemistry, Elements, Physics, Physical Science, Nuclear Energy, Simulation, Lithosphere, HS-ESS1-6, HS-PS1-8, Matter & Its Interactions, Earth's History, AP Sciences, SC.912.P.10.11, TEKS Science CHEM.14.A, CHEM1-PS1-17, 3.2.9-12.H, 3.3.9-12.G