Virginia Department of Education
Determining Absolute Age
How can radioactive decay help date old objects? Learners explore half-life and radioactive decay by conducting an experiment using pennies to represent atoms. Young scientists graph data from the experiment to identify radioactive decay...
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I'm Late, I'm Late, for a Radioactive Date!
Through the use of an interactive Web site, students explore C-14 and C-14 dating. Then students analyze an article written about the C-14 dating of the Shroud of Turin and draw conclusions.
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Determining the Age of Fossils
Students examine the concept of radioactive dating. In this radioactive dating lesson, students investigate how to determine the ages of fossils and rocks as they learn about half-life radioactive decay.
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Frosty the Snowman Meets His Demise: An Analogy to Carbon Dating
Students read and discuss an article about carbon dating, then participate in a hands-on lab to discover how carbon dating works. Students also write a letter to a friend explaining the process, and how archeologists use the process to...
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Earth's Age: The Dating Game
Students conduct a simulation to determine radioactive decay and half-life. Using pennies, dice or sugar cubes as isotopes placed in shoe boxes simulating rocks, they hold five trials representing 1000 years each to find the theoretical...
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Using Radioactive Decay To Determine Age
Learners explore the process of carbon dating fossils to determine their age. They simulate radioactive decay using pennies in a shoe box. Heads represents a decayed atom each time they shake the box. They use the data to calculate the...
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Radioactive Decay: A Sweet Simulation of a Half-life
High schoolers demonstrate rates of decay of unstable nuclei can be measured. They understand ratios and multiplication of fractions. They simulate radioactive decay. They read about the accomplishments of scientists.
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Half Life Lab
Seventh graders model radioactive decay using pennies, collect data from their model, apply scientific visualization techniques to their data and create animated models explaining the concept of radioactive half-life.
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Isotopes of Pennies
Students demonstrate that isotopes of an element have different masses. They illustrate atomic mass and neutrons. The periodic table is examined in length. Display of a collection of atoms is surveyed.
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Properties of Matter
Ninth graders explore the molecular structure of matter and how it can affect the physical characteristics of a specific material. They demonstrate that isotopes of an element have different masses. Students demonstrate that the rates of...