Activities
- Before starting this unit, you should send for the
"Understanding Radiation Kit."
It includes 2 videos, "A Look at Radiation" and "Managing Radiation,"
along with guidebooks, overheads and handouts, and a poster.
You can download the guidebooks: "Understanding Radiation in Our
World"
and the companion guide with classroom
activities .
- Try these worksheets on nuclear chemsitry: "Nuclear Energy #1," and "Nuclear Fusion."
- Have students calculate their annual radiation
dose using the American Nuclear Society's "Radiation
Dose Chart."
- Use these "Radioactivity"
notes and have students fill out the
"Radioactive Deay Summary" and do this "Radioactivty"
worksheet .
- Do this "Half-Life" worksheet.
- Try this "Atomic Crossword"
with answers .
- Or do this "Patterns of Reactivity" crossword puzzle with answers.
- Have your students do this "Radioactivity
(Half-Life)" activity
.
- Have students make a cloud chamber, use a geiger
counter, and calculate their personal radiation dose with these Nuclear Regulatory Commission
activities.
- Show this PowerPoint
presentation about "Nuclear Power Plants"
for the Nuclear Energy
Institute.
- Try this "Nuclear Chemistry"
wordsearch with answers .
- Have students do Mr.
Guch's "Nuclear Chemistry Worksheet"
.
- Show this Flash animation with
audio of "Radioactive Decay."
- Do this "Nuclear"
crossword puzzle with answers.
- The Teacher's Domain (you must
sign up for free) has these activities, "Everyday Radiation," "Fusion: The Hydrogen Bomb," "Nuclear Reaction: Fission," and "Radon Ratiation," which all include
a
videos.
- The Teacher's Domain also has
this "Sources of Radiation" activity with
a Flash Interactive showing where radiation in our
environment is found.
- Show this "Radioactivity" slide presentation.
- Do Patrick Gormley's "Halflife Worksheet."
Kathleen Gorsky of
the NSTA
Listserve provided this "Alpha/Beta Emissions
Simulation" .
Labs
- Do "The Radioactive Decay of Pennium"
lab, a half-life simulation using pennies.
- The "Radioactive Decay of Candium" is
another half-life simulation but uses candy that students can then eat.
- The purpose of the"Alpha Please Leave Home" lab is to
find the range of alpha particles and determine if the inverse square
law applies.
- In the "Penetrating Power" experiment,
students demonstrate the interactions of alpha, beta, and gamma
radiation with matter.
- The purpose of the "Stop That Gamma" experiment is to
find the range of gamma rays and determine if the inverse square law
applies.
- Try Patrick Gormley's online "Halflife of a Radioisotope"
experiment.
Links

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