Context for Use
Half-Life- Every radioactive isotope has its own rate of decay. This rate is called and measured as a half life. A half life of an isotope is defined as the amount of time it takes for half of the atoms in the sample to decay. Half lives can be as short as milliseconds and as long as billions of years. For example, if we examine grams of lead, we will find a half life of 27 minutes. Thus, by examining a substance containing both lead and bismuth, scientists can determine how old it is by the percentage of each element present in the sample.
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In this activity, each coin represents 1 gram of a radioactive element. A coin has a 50 percent chance of showing heads, so in any round we would expect approximately half the coins to show heads.
Radioactive Decay Penny Activity
This corresponds to the decay of half the atoms in a radioactive substance, and therefore the coins are indeed a good model. The result should be a clear-cut operational concept of the half-life of radioactive substances.
Each penny represents 1 gram of a radioactive element. Record your data in the Data Chart provided below. Put the coins in the cup. Cover the cup with your hand and shake the coins.
Radioactive Decay: A Sweet Simulation of a Half-life
There would probably still be some coins left after more than years! That is why, even though the Chernobyl disaster occurred in , the area is still unsafe for humans to inhabit. More to explore Activity: Key concepts Energy Radioactivity Exponential decay Odds Introduction One way of creating energy is with nuclear reactors. Materials About coins this can be a mix of pennies, nickels, dimes and others Resealable plastic bag Flat table top for counting coins Paper or notepad Pencil Preparation Assemble all of your materials at your workspace.
Put exactly coins in the resealable bag. Procedure Shake the bag vigorously for a few seconds.
- Demonstration of radioactive decay using pennies!
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- Radioactive Decay Penny Activity!
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- Half-Life of a Penny Lab Activity?
Open the bag and carefully dump the coins out on a tabletop. Be careful not to dump them out too quickly, or they might roll onto the floor. Separate the coins into two piles: About how many coins landed heads up, and how many landed tails up? What is the ratio between the two? Count the number of heads. Write this number down. Put the coins that landed tails up aside.
Put the coins that landed heads up back in the bag. Shake the bag again and repeat the process. Dump the coins out, separate the coins into heads and tails, count the number of heads, write the number down, and put the heads back in the bag.
Radioactive Decay and Half-Life
Keep repeating this process until there are no more heads to put back in the bag, and you have set aside all coins. Now, look at the numbers you wrote down. Make a stack of coins the same height as each number, and line the stacks up next to each other in order this way you are making a "graph" using stacks of coins, instead of drawing one on paper. Note that you may need to use some of your extra coins to make the stacks for example, say you wrote down the numbers 56, 25, 13, 6, 3, and 1.
If you count ten and weigh them, then multiply by 8, you will know how many grams of candy to weigh out for each group. To help students understand the history of radioactivity, have them go to Radioactivity: Students can supplement this site with a visit to Isotopes Project. Once to that page, students should then go to the Isotope Discovery History, a graph of the number of known isotopes versus the date, and to the Chart of Aristotle and Plato found at the bottom of the page , which the site planners cleverly call "the first chart" of isotopes.
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Radioactive decay, also known as radioactivity, is the spontaneous emission of radiation from the unstable nucleus of an atom. Have students go to the Isotopes Project website to look for more information about radioactive decay. Have students look at the Glossary of Nuclear Science Terms for alpha and beta decay. Ask students to explain the terms in their own words. After students have discussed these questions, tell them: This method of measuring a rate won't work for radioactive decay. We know that radioactive substances disintegrate at a known rate, however. We call this rate the isotope's half-life.
It is the length of time required for the disintegration of one-half of a given number of nuclei of a radioactive element. Let's begin with a small number. Suppose we have nuclei of a radioactive isotope. After one half-life, half of the nuclei will have disintegrated, leaving 50 nuclei. Have students write their answers to these questions in their science journals.
At the end of the lab, give them the opportunity to revisit these questions and change or justify their answers. Give each student a copy of the laboratory procedure called Radioactive Decay: A Sweet Simulation of Half-life.