Radioactive decay

In this activity, students model the radioactive decay process for carbon-14 by flipping coins. Each coin represents a carbon-14 atom, and if it lands tails up when flipped, this indicates radioactive decay.

By the end of this activity, students should be able to:

• appreciate the randomness of radioactive decay

• describe the concept of half-life

• explain the exponential nature of radioactive decay

• relate the radioactivity features of half-life, exponential decay and randomness to C-14 dating of artefacts.

Download the Word file (see link below) for:

• introduction/background notes

• what you need

• what to do

• student worksheet.