Nuril Trisnawati Te2

Radioactive Dating Game
A. HALF LIFE
1. Click the Pause button at the bottom of the window.
2. Click the Add 10 button below the Bucket o Atoms repeatedly, until there are no
more atoms left in the bucket.
3. There are now 100 carbon-14 atoms on the screen. The half-life of carbon-14 is
about 5700 years. If you left those 100 carbon-14 atoms to sit around for 5700
years, how many would you expect to decay during that time? 51 carbon-14
atoms
4. Click the Play button at the bottom of the window. Watch the graph at the top of
the window carefully. Was your prediction from #3 correct? Was it close? No, but
it was very close
5. Click Reset All Nuclei and then repeat step #4. Was your prediction from #3
correct this time? Was it close? Yes, it was correct this time
6. Is radioactive decay an easily predictable process or a statistical process? It is
statistical process
B. DECAY RATES
1. Click the Decay Rates tab at the top of the screen.
2. On the right side of the screen, click the button next to Uraniam-238. This time we
will watch the decay of this atom. Uranium-238 has a half-life of about 4.5 billion
years.
3. On the bucket of atoms, there is a slider. Drag the slider all the way to the right and
watch the graph at the bottom of the screen.
4. Fill in the answers in this table:
After one half-life (4.5 billion years), what percent of the original uranium
remains?
After two half-lives (9 billion years), what percent of the original uranium
remains?
After three half-lives (13.5 billion years), what percent of the original
uranium remains?
After four half-lives (18 billion years), what percent of the original uranium
would remain?
50%
25%
12,5%
<12,5%
5. Suppose you found a rock, and through testing found out that it had just as much
lead-206 as uranium-238 in it. How old would you conclude the rock to be? 4,5
billion years
C. MEASUREMENT
1. Click the Measurement tab at the top of the screen.
2. Click Plant Tree at the bottom of the screen. The tree will grow and live for about
1200 years, then die and begin to decay. Let the time run and watch the graph at
the top of the screen.
3. According to the graph, what is the percent of C-14 in the tree while it is alive?
Why? 100%, because living organism like tree is contained of carbon
4. According to the graph, approximately how many years has the tree been dead
when its C-14 percent is down to 50%? 7020 years
5. According to the graph, approximately how many years has the tree been dead
when its C-14 percent is down to about 12.5%? 18970 years
6. Click Rock on the right side of the screen. Click Uranium-238 underneath Probe
Type in the upper left of the screen. To measure longer times, we need to use an
element that decays more slowly than C-14.
7. Before you click anything, make some predictions. How much uranium will be
remaining when the rock is 4.5 billion years old? 50,1 % How much will be
remaining when the rock is 9 billion years old? 25 % How much will be remaining
when the rock is 13.5 billion years old? 12,4 %
8. Click Erupt Volcano to begin the process of creating an igneous rock. Watch the
graph at the top of the screen. Check your predictions from #7. Were they correct?
Yes, they were correct
D. DATING GAME
Now that we understand radioactive decay and half-lives, we can use them to determine
how old rocks or fossils are.
1. Click the Dating Game tab at the top of the screen.
2. You can drag the probe to different items on or below the surface of the earth. The
probe tells you how much of the original element is still in the rock or fossil. You can
measure C-14 or U-238, whichever works better for the item you are measuring.
3. You can use the graph to match the percent of element remaining, and then use the
time shown to estimate the age of the rock or fossil.
4. Lets do an example:
a. Drag the probe to the dead tree to the right of the house.
b. Look at the probe reading: it tells you that there is 97.4% of the original C-14
remaining in the dead tree.
c. Now find the green arrows on the graph at the top of the screen. Drag those
arrows right or left until the top line tells you that the C-14 percentage is
97.4%, the reading from the probe.
d. When you get the graph to read 97.4%, it tells you that the time has been
229 years.
e. Type this number into the box for Estimate age of dead tree and click
Check Estimate.
f. You should get a green smiley face, indicating that you have correctly figured
out the age of the dead tree.
5. Repeat the above process for all the other items. Fill in the table below.
Item
Age
Element Used
Carbon
Animal Skull
152
House
72
Carbon
Living Tree
Carbon
Distant Living Tree
Carbon
Bone
1.460
Carbon
Wooden Cup
1.029
Carbon
Human Skull
2.191
Carbon
Fish Bones
16.020
Carbon
Rock 1
155.320.000
Uranium
Rock 2
248.630.000
Uranium
Rock 3
455.310.000
Uranium
Hint: For the last four items

Rock 4 on725.300.000
the list, neither C-14 or
U-238
will work well. Select
1.240.000.0
Rock 5 Custom, and pick a half00
life that gives you
something other than 0.0%
Uranium
Uranium
Fish Fossil
26.900.000
Dinosaur Skull
154.860.000
Trilobite
309.430.000
Small Human Skull
38.333
Kevin Fairchild, La Costa Canyon High

School, 2011
Other (Million
years)
Other (Million
years)
Other (Million
years)
Other (Hundred
years)

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What are the main elements discussed in the passage for radioactive dating?

How can radioactive decay be used to determine the age of rocks and fossils?

Radioactive Dating Game

Distant Living Tree

Hint: For the last four items

Small Human Skull

Kevin Fairchild, La Costa Canyon High

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