Analysis of Dice and Centicube Decay Curves for Hands-on Radioactivity Teaching

Overview

Centicubes have been a common manipulative in elementary and middle school classrooms to teach counting, addition, subtraction, fractions, ratios, and proportions. Since each cube has a length of one centimeter and a standard mass of one gram, they have also been used to teach metric length, area, volume, and mass. Due to their availability, simplicity and low cost, we propose using centicubes as an analogue to investigate radioactive decay rates, a topic taught first in physics and later applied in the context of the earth science standard that describes radiometric dating. After summarizing several ways to simulate radioactive decay in a classroom environment, we describe the use of multiple controlled trials modeling decays with short, medium, and long half-lives with both centicubes and dice. We completed a statistical goodness-of-fit test to compare their various exponential curves and empirically demonstrate the extent of their similarity. Implications for classroom instruction will be discussed.

Competition history

• AJAS 2024 Category not listed

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