Energy from Uranium

Page 56

M&Mium Radioactive Decay & Background Radioactive isotopes emit particles and energy in an effort to become stable. For some elements, this takes a long time and in other cases it happens very quickly.

? Question 

Half-Lives

Do all half-life graphs look similar?

Radioactivity

 Materials Licorice and M&Mium Decay Graph 100 M&M’s® in a cup Paper towel

Procedure 1. Create a data table in your science notebook (like the one to the right) with Half-Lives as the independent variable and Radioactivity as the dependent variable. 2. Count out 100 “radioactive” M&M’s®. (Discard any yellow M&M’s® as they are too difficult to read! Make sure you replace them with a different color.) 3. In your data table, enter 0 for “Half-Lives” and under “Radioactivity” enter the TOTAL number of “radioactive” M&M’s® you are starting with—100. 4. Put the “radioactive” candies in a container (cup or bag), shake them up and then carefully dump them onto the paper towel. 5. Remove all the M&M’s® that are face down (with the M not showing)—these have “decayed” and become stable in the simulation. 6. Enter 1 for half-lives and record the number of remaining “radioactive” candies in your data table. 7. Place the candies that remained “radioactive” back into the cup, shake lightly and repeat this process until all the “radioactive” candies have become stable. Be sure to increase the number of half-lives by one for each shake. 8. On the same graph you used in Licorice Decay, place the number 100 at the same height along the vertical y-axis as you placed the mark above the full length licorice for 0 half cuts. 9. Appropriately scale the rest of the vertical axis based on the origin being 0 and the mark you just made being the total number of “radioactive” M&M’s® you started with at 0 half-lives—100. Graph the rest of your data from the candy trials.

 Analysis 1. Compare your graph to a neighbor’s. What similarities and differences do you see?

 Conclusion 1. As you look at your graph and your neighbor’s, what do you notice? How is this activity similar to what happens in the natural world?

2. How does the graph for the licorice compare to the graph for the M&M’s® decaying?

56

©2019 The NEED Project

Energy From Uranium

www.NEED.org


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Glossary

7min
pages 75-77

Nuclear Energy Bingo

1min
page 74

Culminating Activity: Nuclear Energy Letter Prompt

1min
page 70

Nuclear Energy Assessment

1min
pages 71-73

Culminating Activity: Nuclear Power Plant Hearing

5min
pages 68-69

Uranium in the Round Cards

2min
pages 65-67

Nuclear Energy Expo

4min
pages 63-64

Milling Simulation

1min
page 59

Radiation Dose Chart

2min
page 58

M&Mium Radioactive Decay

1min
page 56

Licorice Decay

1min
page 55

Atomic Mass Model

2min
page 50

Science of Electricity Model

9min
pages 46-48

Nuclear Energy Assessment Answer Key

2min
page 23

Internet Resources

2min
page 22

Careers in the Nuclear Industry

3min
page 42

Nuclear Energy Bingo Instructions

5min
pages 20-21

Standards Correlation Information

1min
page 4

Teacher Guide

31min
pages 6-19

Materials

1min
page 5
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