Carolina ChemKits®: Radioactive Decay and Half-Life Simulations

Grades 9–12. Strengthen students' grasp of nuclear decay and half-lives with this 3-activity kit. Students simulate radioactive decay using both multi-faced cubes and water flow. They graph their data and determine the half-life of both "radioactive" samples. Students then perform a radioactive decay series simulation of a "newly discovered" radioisotope from an unstable nucleus to a stable nucleus. Activities require about 2 hr of class time. Enough kit materials for 10 student groups.