Radioactivity
Lab 7: Radioactivity
INSTRUCTIONS:
•   On your own and without assistance, complete this Lab 7 Answer Form and submit it via the Assignments Folder by the date listed on your Course Schedule (under Syllabus).
•   To conduct your laboratory exercises, use the Laboratory Manual that is available in the classroom. Laboratory exercises on your CD may not be updated.
•   Save your Lab 7 Answer Form in the following format: LastName_Lab7 (e.g., Smith_Lab7).
•   Submit your document in a Word (.doc or .docx) or Rich Text Format (.rtf) for best compatibility.
Experiment 1: Estimating Half-Life
Table 2: Half-Life Experimental Results
Total number of atoms:
Trial    Number of decayed atoms    Average    Percentage of decayed    atoms                                  (from original number)
1st Round   2nd Round   3rd Round
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Questions
1.   What is meant by the term half-life?
2.   At the end of two half-lives, what percentage of atoms (Skittles™) have not decayed? Show your calculation.
3.   Using your data, graph the number of undecayed atoms vs. trials below to show when 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16 of your Skittles remain (use the values next to the boxes you put checks next to in Step 8 of the procedure).
4.   How would the graph change if 20 Skittles were used in this experiment?
5.   If 1/8 of a radioactive element remains after 600 years, what is that element’s half-life?
Learning Summary
1.   Please include a brief one Paragraph Learning Summary that described what you thought the main take-aways were for the lab and what you think that you learned by doing this experiment.