Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Name
CWID
Craig Francis
890866122
Class Title
ATMS Chemistry
Subject Area
Lesson Title
M&M Half Life Lab
Chemistry
Unit Title
Nuclear
Reactions
Grade Levels
10
Total Minutes
40
CLASS DESCRIPTION
The class is composed of 34 sophomore students who share multiple classes as members of an Advanced Technology,
Science and Math cohort. There are several very bright students who exhibit self-control issues which impact their own
learning as well as the learning of those around them. At least one of these students may be an unidentified Gifted and
Talented (GATE) student
STANDARDS AND LESSON OBJECTIVES
CCSS Math, CCSS ELA & Literacy History/Social
Studies, Science and Technical Subjects, NGSS, and
English Language Development Standards (ELD)
Content Standards
HS-PS1-8. Develop models to illustrate the changes in the composition
of the nucleus of the atom and the energy released during the
processes of fission, fusion, and radioactive decay.
Offering and justifying opinions, negotiating with and persuading others
HS-PS1-7. Use mathematical representations to support
in communicative exchanges
the claim that atoms, and therefore mass, are
conserved during a chemical reaction.
Lesson Objective(s)
Evidence
Objective: Students will explain alpha decay as the
Students will complete worksheet associated with M&M
formation of new more stable elements by the
lab and graph the decreasing abundance of a theoretical
release of a He atom from the nucleus of a more
radioactive substance.
massive atom and explain the concept of half-live
for radioactive elements.
Students will use the evidence from the lesson to address
the big question How do we know the age of the earth?
Language Objective: (Function) Students share
when discussed in terms of C14 dating.
opinions of the age of the planet and how we know
and how they would go about measuring that age
within their groups.
Content Purpose: You will determine the half-life of
a given isotope and determine the masses of the
remaining substance based on the calculated halflife and the event time.
STUDENT ASSESSMENT
Purpose/Focus of
Type
Assessment
EL
PM
Completion of M&M
worksheet
Implementation
Feedback Strategy
Teacher monitoring
concept based on
observations.
INSTRUCTION
Instructional Strategies
Students will be engaged in a physical social demonstration of spontaneous alpha decay using a house party analogy.
Students will then engage in a laboratory where they collect data which demonstrates the concept of diminishing
relative abundance of radioactive isotopes.
Lesson Introduction/Anticipatory Set
Time
Teacher Does
Student Does
Students Read learning objective. Determine the
half-life of a given isotope and determine the masses
of the remaining substance based on the calculated
half-life and the event time
Teacher invites students to read learning objective
for the lesson from the white board.
8 min
Vocabulary:
Nuclear Fission
Nuclear Fusion
Isotope
Decay
Half-Life
Stable
Relative Abundance
Radioactive
Proton
Velocity
Evict
Students Think Write Share the big question
1. How old do you think the planet is?
2. How do you know?
3. How would you go about measuring the age of
something so old?
Lesson Body
Time
Teacher Does
40 min
Add protons
Too close
Half-Life
o A bunch of house parties on your street
o Half Live is the amount of time that it takes
for half of the parties to evict someone
Student Does
Introduction to spontaneous radioactive decay
o Students volunteer for demonstration
Event Number
Safety:
o Dont eat M&Ms that have touched the
table or the floor!!!!
o
Execution
Event 1
Label Axiss
Label Graphs
Answer Questions
Lesson Closure
Time
Teacher Does
Student Does
Asks students to Think Write Share the Big Question
Students present groups consensus for Big Questions
Asks students to write vocabulary definitions based
Students supply definitions based on lesson context.
on lesson context
Students provide +/- feedback for the class.
7 Min
Asks students to write 3 things that they liked about
the class and three things that they would change
about the class
Instructional Materials, Equipment, and Multimedia
M&M worksheets, dry erase marker, 5 lb bag of M&Ms, paper towels, paper drinking cups (for shakers)
Co-Teaching Strategies
Monitoring and small group teaching
DIFFERENTIATION
English Learners
Specific content vocabulary
will be provided to English
learning students. Students
will be prompted prior to
the lesson to pay attention
to the vocabulary when
used in the context of the
lesson. Students with
emerging English skills will
be provided sentence
Striving Readers
The lesson is presented
with a physical, interactive
format where students
observe a representation of
the phenomenon in both
the decay model and the
M&M lab.
Advanced Students
Advanced students will be
afforded the opportunity to
have leadership
responsibilities within the
class. They will be grouped
with lower performing
students within their
research groups where they
can help those students
with understanding during