In this lesson, students will simulate the randomness of decay in radioactive atoms and visualize the half-life of a sample radioactive element. This lesson can be completed in two (2) 45-minute class ...

What these two processes share is baked into the math of each. In fact, in that respect, they're nearly identical. They both involve some stuff (atoms or money) that is either growing or shrinking.

Radioactive decay is the strange and almost mystical ability for one element to naturally and spontaneously transmute into another. In the process, those elements tend to emit deadly forms of ...

In this lesson, students will investigate the nature of radioactivity and the effect of both distance and shielding materials on different radioactive sources using a Geiger-Muller tube with a counter ...

For example, carbon-14 decays to nitrogen-14 when it emits beta radiation. As this breakdown occurs, the activity of any radioactive source becomes less. This activity is measured in becquerels.

Different isotopes have different half-lives. Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,100 years but plutonium-241 has a half-life of only 14.4 years. The half-life of a particular isotope is unaffected by ...

Geologists have calculated the age of Earth at 4.6 billion years. But for humans whose life span rarely reaches more than 100 years, how can we be so sure of that ancient date? It turns out the ...