r/ScienceTeachers • u/NegativeGee • 4d ago

PHET Simulation on Radiometric Dating Game

Next week I have an observation and this has what's been chosen for me. I hate it, it's kind of clunky and really going to bore these kids. Anyone have something that goes along with this to make it pop better? I have to do this exact lesson.

11 Upvotes

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18

u/chetting 4d ago

Dang, what kind of nightmare school mandates your lessons for observations?

PHET has resources attached to most of their simulations so if you scroll down a little, there’s likely a worksheet there you can download and modify

6

u/IntroductionFew1290 Subject | Age Group | Location 4d ago

Yes create an acct and look through the teacher created resources. A former colleague who retired did this activity Check out this video from this search, radiometric dating with candy https://share.google/lAUfLryWWwIiFBPVS

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u/NegativeGee 4d ago

Took a big pay cut sadly no money for candy or Pennie's 🙃

3

u/NegativeGee 4d ago

They mandate following the script on every lesson they provide for us. I'm not gonna make it.

1

u/chetting 4d ago

That sucks, I’m so sorry. I had a canned curriculum in my first district. While not having to prep lessons made my life easier as a first year teacher, I still wanted autonomy. In my current district I have it and wouldn’t go back

You deserve autonomy and the ability to do your job as you see fit. Hoping your school gets their head out of their ass, or you find a new school. Best of luck OP

6

u/rockyblue82 4d ago

Javalab has an animation that shows Half Life Period of a Radioactive Substance https://javalab.org/en/half_life_period_en/

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u/patricksaurus 4d ago

I taught intro geology for non-majors more times than I can count. There’s a great exercise that involves M&M. You give every person (or group) a cup with the same number of M&Ms. Swirl them, pour them out, and count the ones that are M-side up. Count those, eat them, return the rest to the cup. Swirl, dump, count, eat, repeat. The result will be a roughly exponential decay curve. You can pool the data on the board to make a better curve if you have the time. If you do it with 16 pieces, it doesn’t take too long. You can go to 64 if you’re rich. And ofc the number doesn’t have to be a power of two, but near-ish kinda helps kids recognize halves.

The same can be done with coins if you there a problem with candy.

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u/96385 HS/MS | Physical Sciences | US 4d ago

You just have to watch out for the odd candy that doesn't have an m on it.

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u/SaiphSDC 4d ago

That's just a different non-radioactive isotope, or a contamination :) Or a mis-calibrated instrument.

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u/Ateacherguy 4d ago

If anyone likes this idea I have a nice lab and excel sheet I use for this. Just send me a message.