Before using these tasks, consider reviewing the Guidance for Use document, which provides suggestions for the most effective ways the TDSciN Task Library can be used to support high-quality science teaching and learning.

Tennessee Academic Standards for Science

• CHEM1.PS1.9: Draw models (qualitative models such as pictures or diagrams) to demonstrate understanding of radioactive stability and decay. Understand and differentiate between fission and fusion reactions. Use models (graphs or tables) to explain the concept of half-life and its use in determining the age of materials (such as radiometric dating).

Next Generation Science Standards

• Science and Engineering Practices
  Developing and Using Models
  • High School Element: Develop and/or use multiple types of models to provide mechanistic accounts and/or predict phenomena, and move flexibly between model types (based on merits and limitations).
• Disciplinary Core Ideas
  PS1C: Nuclear Processes
  • High School Element: Nuclear processes, including fusion, fission, and radioactive decays of unstable nuclei, involve release or absorption of energy. The total number of neutrons plus protons does not change in any nuclear process.
  • High School Element: Spontaneous radioactive decays follow a characteristic exponential decay law. Nuclear lifetimes allow radiometric dating to be used to determine the ages of rocks and other materials.
• Crosscutting Concepts
  Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Prediction
  • High School Element: Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects.