Activity
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.
Published: 9 December 2011