Radioactivity

This resource provides a lesson plan showing how to use analogies to teach about radioactive decay. The approach used in the lesson is based on education research which is summarised in a separate research summary document.

The lesson introduces several activities to model the concepts of radioactive decay and half-life. It also suggest the key questions that should be asked to check pupils' understanding. At the end of the lesson pupils are asked to discuss how well the models compare with reality.

By the end of the lesson pupils should be able to:

• describe radioactive decay as random
• define half-life
• explain the concept of half-life and how it relates to the random nature of radioactive decay
• determine the half-life of a radioactive isotope from given information

The research summary suggests that analogies are useful in science teaching, as teachers can use a familiar concept to serve as a picture or metaphor that explains an abstract idea.

This resource is part of a collection of research informed secondary science lesson plans produced as part of the Research-2-Practice (R2P) project undertaken by research teams at the University of Roehampton, University of Lincoln, York St John University and KYRA research school, between 2020 and 2021, which was funded by Wellcome.

The overall aim of the project was to enhance the quality of teaching and learning in science by giving time-pressed teachers quick and easy access to relevant research to inform their practice and provide exemplar lesson plans to show how the research could be used in the classroom. More resources can be found here.