Year 11 students, check the dates!
Ionising radiation is hazardous but can be very useful. Although radioactivity was discovered over a century ago, it took many nuclear physicists several decades to understand the structure of atoms, nuclear forces and stability. Early researchers suffered from their exposure to ionising radiation. Rules for radiological protection were first introduced in the 1930s and subsequently improved. Today radioactive materials are widely used in medicine, industry, agriculture and electrical power generation.
Lesson Objectives:
Name the three types of nuclear radiation & the three sub-atomic particles found in an atom.
Describe some safety precautions used when dealing with radioactive materials.
Describe how a Geiger counter can be used to detect radiation.
Identify natural and man-made sources of background radiation.
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Lesson Objectives:
Describe the plum pudding model of the atom.
Describe the evidence provided by the Rutherford scattering experiment.
Identify the type of decay taking place from a nuclear equation.
Complete decay equations for alpha and beta decay.
Calculate the number of neutrons in an isotope by using nuclear notation.
Note: this section of GCSE Physics has a lot of crossover with GCSE Chemistry. The relevant Chemistry section can be found here.
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Lesson Objectives:
Rank the three types of nuclear radiation in terms of their penetrating power and range through air
Describe how the penetrating powers of radiation can be measured.
Describe the path of radiation types through a magnetic field and explain how this shows that some radiation types are electrically charged.
Describe the process of ionisation.
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Lesson Objectives:
Define half-life in simple terms such as ‘the time it takes for half of the material to decay’.
Find the half-life of a substance from a graph of count rate (or nuclei remaining) against time.
Find the ratio of a sample remaining after a given number of half-lives.
State that all atoms of a particular isotope have an identical chance to decay in a fixed time.
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Lesson Objectives:
State that nuclear fission is the breaking of a large nucleus to form two smaller nuclei and that nuclear fusion is the joining of two smaller nuclei to form a large nucleus.
Describe induced nuclear fission in terms of neutron impacts and release.
Explain how an escalating induced fission reaction occurs.
Explain why it is difficult to make a nuclear fusion reactor.
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News: Breakthrough in nuclear fusion energy announced
Nuclear fusion: new record brings dream of clean energy closer
Lesson Objectives:
Explain why alpha, beta, or gamma radiation is chosen for a particular medical application.
Describe how gamma rays can be used to destroy cancerous cells and the damage they may cause to healthy tissue.
Compare the risks and damage associated with alpha, beta, and gamma radiation.
Describe how damage caused by radioactive material can be reduced.
Discuss the difficulties associated with the handling and storage of nuclear waste.
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