Chemistry
Standard 2, Objective 2
Title: Isotopic Dating Activity
Description: Students will be doing research relating half-life and age of radioactive substances on interesting topics.
Time Needed: About twenty minutes will be needed for an introduction on day one. All of day two (70 minutes) will be used for student research and approximately thirty minutes on day three for class presentations.
Prior Knowledge: Students should know the basics of carbon or other half-life dating. They should know enough that as they do the research they understand the material they find. This could be used as an introductory activity and the concepts of dating could be discussed later. This activity can be used as a hook to get students interested in the topic.
Materials Needed: Use the research worksheet provided.
Safety Considerations: None
Procedure:
1. Show the PowerPoint (also on this website) to introduce the isotopic dating topic. Don’t go into too much detail because the students will be researching the next day. Have everyone choose a topic. I usually allow four to five students per group so there are people to present for each topic.
2. The next day give them a brief overview of how to find good science magazine articles. The Pioneer Library works well if your library has it.
3. Have the students present what they found to the class. I allow for extra credit if they bring in something extra for their presentation (I’ve had a student bring in part of a mammoth tusk and another bring in a newspaper article etc.).
Scoring Guide: Give the students five points per question on their worksheet. Tell the kids they need to fill the lines provided.
Name______Period ______
Title: Isotopic Dating
Introduction: You may have heard news stories of discoveries of objects made or from the ancient world. Almost always, an isotopic dating process is mentioned as the way the finders have discovered the age of the item. You may have also heard that dishonest people sometimes make fakes of antiques or rare old objects. Isotopic dating can uncover these forgeries also. In this activity, you will investigate a well known object from the past and see how isotopic dating uncovered valuable information about it.
Choose from the following topics:
City of Pompeii Mammoths
Shroud of Turin Neanderthals
Iceman First Americans
Mummies Piltdown Man
Choose your own topic with teacher approval.
Answer each question completely. Be prepared to share your findings with your class.
Who Cares? What makes this topic interesting? Why is it important to know about it? ______
What? What techniques were used to find out how old your subject is? ______
Other Events? What other discoveries have been found using isotopic dating? ______
Describe. What did you found interesting about your topic? ______
What’s going now? What is the most current information on the subject? ______
When? When was it discovered? Tell about a find. ______
What more? What other information did you find out in your research? ______
Draw or paste or tape a picture, diagram, data table, etc. That pertains to your topic below.