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ERIC Number: EJ1004655
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-Jan
Pages: 3
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0031-921X
EISSN: N/A
A Remote Radioactivity Experiment
Jona, Kemi; Vondracek, Mark
Physics Teacher, v51 n1 p25-27 Jan 2013
Imagine a high school with very few experimental resources and limited budgets that prevent the purchase of even basic laboratory equipment. For example, many high schools do not have the means of experimentally studying radioactivity because they lack Geiger counters and/or good radioactive sources. This was the case at the first high school one of us (MV) worked at, and after talking with numerous colleagues we know this is still the case at many schools. What options are there then for physics teachers to allow their students to "experimentally" investigate certain characteristics of radioactivity, such as how distance affects the intensity of radiation coming from a radioactive source? There are computer simulations that can be run, or perhaps the teacher has a light sensor and tries to make an analogy between the intensity of light from a light bulb and the intensity of radiation from a radioactive source based on geometric arguments to get an inverse-square law. But for many there is no direct experimental option if one does not possess a Geiger counter and good radioactive sample. It is for that teacher and class of students that an online, remote radioactivity experiment was created. (Contains 3 figures.)
American Association of Physics Teachers. One Physics Ellipse, College Park, MD 20740. Tel: 301-209-3300; Fax: 301-209-0845; e-mail: pubs@aapt.org; Web site: http://scitation.aip.org/tpt
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: High Schools; Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A