About This Lesson
In this activity, students model radioactive decay using coins and dice. By relating the results from the model to the experimental results in Measuring the half life of protactinium, students can see that the model helps to explain the way in which a radioactive substance decays. The model provides an insight into what might be happening within radioactive atoms.
This activity is a good analogy of radioactive decay as it is based on probability. The decaying trend will be noticeable and so too will the random nature.
An effective simulation activity to help students to understand radioactive decay, suppored by video, technical notes, teaching notes and links to experiments.