From: Waring, Cynthia (Cwaring@phoenix.k12.ny.us)
Date: Fri Feb 07 2003 - 10:55:46 EST
I haven't read the exact half life lab but I've done it with M&M's. Many
of my students went home a little more radioactive after the class so I
switched to pennies.
The physics teacher and I are waiting for the entire series to be taped so
that we can start the course. It sounds interesting do far
Cynthia
At 06:46 PM 02/06/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>I think the sciences more easily taught as integrated courses in the lower
>grades where the students have not yet made the divisions. Then at the
>upper levels, where we can go more in depth, the students see that we can
>approach a topic from a biology standpoint and then the next year pick it
>up and look that it through the eyes of a chemist and then again in
>physics. The more angles we show, the bigger and better the perpective. I
>almost feel as though I am poaching on physics territory when we do the
>atom and nuclear but at least those not going on to physics have had some
>exposure. We teach nuclear at the end of the year when things are hectic
>with grades, finals, inventory and ordering, so last year I had the
>students do a project in groups of four. I gave them the topics to be
>covered with a fairly heafty rubric and lots of sites that they could draw
>from. It was a lot of work ahead of time but we all enjoyed the end
>product. The finale was that they each had to write a paper for or against
>the nuclear power expansion in light of what they had learned.
>PS I liked the M&M activity but I would not be able to keep up with "lost"
>M&M's! One of our previous teachers did a similar activity to teach half
>lives using sugar cubes with one side (I think) colored with food color.
>He said that the data gave a very good exponential curve.
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