Radioactivity Worksheet

1. Nuclei are often written in the form

i)

A
Z

What does the letter A represent?

____________________________________________________________
ii)

What does the letter Z represent?

____________________________________________________________
iii)

Iron (Fe) has an atomic number 26 and a mass number of 56.

Write down the nuclear formula for iron.

____________________________________________________________
2. Write down the nuclear symbols for alpha particles and beta particles.
Alpha particle _________________

Beta particle _______________

3.

4. What is meant by the term nuclear decay?

_______________________________________________________________
5. Aluminium can be written as
i)

27
13

Al .

How many protons are in the aluminium nucleus?

____________________________________________________________
ii)

How many neutrons are in the aluminium nucleus?

____________________________________________________________

iii)

How many electrons are there in a neutral aluminium atom?

____________________________________________________________
6. Radon-222 decays into Polonium-218. Complete the nuclear equation by
inserting the correct numbers in the blank spaces.
222
86

Rn

__
__

Po 24

7. Lead-210 decay by emitting a beta particle. Complete the nuclear equation by

inserting the correct numbers in the blank spaces.
210
82

Pb

__
__

Bi 10

Some more questions about Nuclear equations:

Download and install RadiationLab at

http://getwordwall.com/VisualSimulations
o

Use it to investigate the penetrating power of different radiations.

Use it to see how to use a Geiger-Muller detector. (see manual)

Questions about half-life

The half life is the time it takes for the activity of a sample to half. Find the half lives
of the following samples.
Sample A

Half Life = ________________

Sample B

Half Life = ________________

Sample C

Half Life = ________________

Calculating Half Life:
1. A sample of cobalt-60 has an activity of 2000 Bq. What will the activity be after
10 years? Cobalt-60 has a half life of 5 years.
2. A sample of strontium-90 has an activity of 5000 Bq. After 120 years the activity
has fallen to 625 Bq. What is the half life of strontium-90?
3. The half-life of radium-226 is 1600 years. If a sample of radium-226 has an
original activity of 200 Bq, what will its activity be after 4800 years?
4. Sodium-24 has a half-life of 15 hours. If a sample of sodium-24 has an original
activity of 500 Bq, what will its activity be after 60 hours?
5. A rock once contained 1.0 mg of uranium-238, but now contains only 0.25 mg.
Given that the half-life for uranium-238 is 4.5 x 109 (4.5 billion) years, how old is
the rock?
6. The half-life of tritium (hydrogen-3) is 12.3 years. If 48.0 mg of tritium is released
from a nuclear power plant during the course of a mishap, what mass of the
sample will remain after 49.2 years?