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Product Highlights

• Observe the contrails formed as ionizing radiation travels through a cooled, supersaturated vapor.
• High school teacher-led, student-engaged demonstration with enough materials for 5 performances.
• Carolina Kits 3D®—Labs that use phenomena to support NGSS and 3-dimensional instruction.

Students experience the phenomenon of radioactive decay through observing tracks created in a cloud chamber by ionizing radiation as it passes through a cooled, supersaturated alcohol vapor. They illustrate and explain what is happening in the cloud chamber on a particulate level while learning about radioactive decay and writing nuclear equations to model that decay. Students then connect the phenomenon to real-world applications such as nuclear power, nuclear medicine, and archeological dating.

Time Requirement
Total, 55 minutes. Teacher prep, 15 minutes. Demonstration and discussion, 40 minutes.

Digital Resources
Includes 1-year access to digital resources that support 3-dimensional instruction for NGSS. Digital resources may include a teacher manual and student guide, pre-lab activities and setup videos, phenomenon videos, simulations, and post-lab analysis and assessments.

Performance Expectations
HS-PS1-8

Crosscutting Concepts
Energy and Matter

Disciplinary Core Ideas
PS1.C: Nuclear Processes

Science and Engineering Practices
Developing and Using Models

Learning Objectives

• Model radioactive decay by writing nuclear equations for alpha, beta, and gamma emissions.
• Explain how design features of the cloud chamber allow for observing subatomic particles.
• Illustrate and explain what happens in the cloud chamber on a particulate level.

Prerequisite Knowledge and Skills
Students should be familiar with models of atoms, subatomic particle arrangement, and isotopes; writing balanced nuclear equations; and how charged particles interact with each other in electric and magnetic fields.

NOTE: Instructions for this kit are based on the predict, observe, explain (POE) model. POE is primarily used in science classes. Specifically, POE has optimal effects when paired with demonstrations that allow students to make and record observations and then follow those observations with explanations.