The Inquiry into Radioactivity materials focus on three main content areas for radiation literacy:
- What radiation is
- Where it comes from
- How it does harm
These topics are addressed in four cycles. Each cycle covers a particular set of issues that touch on the above three questions.
We found that the traditional order of topics didn't work for these students - they needed to think about more things. For example, we had to add a cycle on atoms. Also the topic of half lives is pushed back to the last cycle after most students have developed mental models of radiation as subatomic particles moving at high speed. Students have a lot to work out before they can understand half lives as naturally arising from a large number of atoms emitting radiation seemingly at random.
The major ideas addressed in each activity are listed below - bear in mind that these are very general and a lot of details are worked out in every activity.
Cycle 1: General issues of radiation
0.1 Introduction to scientific thinking - the Seeds activity
1.0 Students' initial ideas about radiation (conceptual evaluation)
1.1 Background radiation, randomness, radiation is everywhere
1.2 More on randomness, how to compare two averages of radiation counts
1.3 Sources of radiation in the classroom, count rates, and their relative hazard
1.4 Testing for contamination of objects by radiation
1.5 More types of radiation - electromagnetic, visible light, infrared, etc.
1.6 Alpha, beta, and gamma radiation
Cycle 2: Atoms
2.0 Students' initial ideas about atoms (conceptual evaluation)
2.1 Attractions and repulsions by electric charges
2.2 Structure of atoms and behavior of ions
2.3 The role of neutrons in atoms - isotopes
2.4 The behavior of unstable nuclei, and identifying radiation as particles from nuclei
2.5 Accounting for all the particles in radiation emission
2.6 Matching alpha, beta, and gamma radiation with the particles emitted in the simulator
2.7 Developing the pattern of types of radiation emitted by nuclei with different kinds of problems
Cycle 3: Radiation and matter
3.0 Students' initial ideas on radiation and matter (questions and discussion)
3.1 Interaction of radiation with individual atoms
3.2 Interaction of radiation many atoms at different size scales
3.3 Seeing and explaining radiation tracks in a cloud chamber
3.4 Revisiting the effects of shielding of radiation - using the particle model
3.5 Health effects: Acute radiation exposure and doses
3.6 Health effects: Stochastic doses and cancer treatment
Cycle 4: Nuclear power, nuclear waste, and half lives
4.1 The nuclear fission process and the nuclear chain reaction
4.2 Advantages of nuclear power
4.3 Half lives of radioactive species
4.4 Atoms timing (a random model for how half lives arise)
4.5 Origin and half lives of nuclear waste
