During this activity, the students will collaborate in groups of 4 to complete a List-Group-Label as a before strategy for a lesson on radioactivity to activate and assess students' prior knowledge. The students will collaborate on a shared Google document to create a brainstorm of all the words and concepts they know that are associated with the word, radioactive. Then, they will group the words into categories and ultimately label each group of terms. This activity will give the teacher insight into student's thoughts and possible misconceptions about radiation before a lesson on radioactivity.
This activity was created as a result of the GAP Resource Summit.
In this virtual lab, students simulate the radioactive half-life of four different elements. They record the data in a digital table, graph the data, and then answer journal questions based on their findings.
This activity was created as a result of the ALEX Gap Project Resource Development Summit.
In this video excerpt from NOVA: "Hunting the Elements," New York Times technology columnist David Pogue explores how isotopes of carbon can be used to determine the age of once-living matter. Learn how variations in atomic structure form isotopes of an element and how the three natural isotopes of carbon differ from each other. Meet paleoclimatologist Scott Stine, who uses radiocarbon dating to study changes in climate. Find out what it means for an isotope to be radioactive and how the half-life of carbon-14 allows scientists to date organic materials.
