Lesson Plan: Gamma Radiation Physics
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to describe the process of unstable atoms decaying to a lower energy state by emitting high-energy gamma rays.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- recall that when a nucleus undergoes gamma decay, its atomic number stays the same,
- recall that when a nucleus undergoes gamma decay, its mass number stays the same,
- recall that when a nucleus undergoes gamma decay, its relative charge stays the same,
- solve nuclear equations involving gamma decay,
- recall that a gamma ray is a photon.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- the basic structure of atoms,
- what photons are.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- ways of blocking gamma radiation,
- comparing gamma rays to X-rays,
- metastable states,
- excited nuclear states,
- isomers,
- anything to do with the shell model of the nucleus,
- alpha decay, beta decay, neutron emission, proton emission, electron capture, and positron emission.
