Today we worked on the Forensic Archeology lab. It was tedious to say the least. My partner and I began by drawinga 24 by 24 square on a piece of paper and cutting out
576 boxes. I didn't exactly "enjoy" that part. After we were done cutting out the boxes we then put them in a cup and dumped them out. We separated the boxes with color facing upward and the boxes that are blank. Then counted them. Then restarted the process with the blank ones. Until we finished the required amount of trials. I know the point of the lab was to demonstrate halve lives, but there must be some other way to visualize the half life process. Despite all this I still learned quite a bit. :D
I disagree about your feelings on making the boxes. Although a tedious process, the making of our "atoms" was an enjoyable process for me. The process was beneficial because to me, it represented the period of time that the atom was stable before the radioactive decay, which was an interesting connection for me.
ReplyDeleteI also thought the lab was very helpful in understanding how half lives work, but I think we could've learned the same thing with a lot less squares. At least we didn't have to cut out as many as in the picture!
ReplyDeleteThat's a super cool picture. And I think it was a very insightful way of learning half lives. It is definitely a lot better than just doing practice problems. But I agree with you, that cutting out 567 squares may have an overkill.
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