Virginia Department of Education
Determining Absolute Age
How can radioactive decay help date old objects? Learners explore half-life and radioactive decay by conducting an experiment using pennies to represent atoms. Young scientists graph data from the experiment to identify radioactive decay...
Curated OER
Absolute Ages of Rocks
In this age of rocks worksheet, learners answer five matching questions about terms related to the decay of atoms. They use a strip of paper to simulate half life of atoms and determine the total amount of time it took to deplete the paper.
Curated OER
Measuring Absolute Time
In this absolute time worksheet, students answer eleven questions about ways to measure the age of fossils. They define half-life, answer questions about radioactive dating, tree rings and varves.
Curated OER
work in pairs for the activities of this lesson which include researching and identifying butterflies, writing, and a brief oral presentation.
High schoolers explore the concepts of rdioactive decay and dating. They generate a radioactive decay table, use their data to plot a decay graph, develop the concept of half-life, and then use the graph to find the age of a mummified...
Curated OER
Absolute Dating/Radioactive Dating
Students explore radioactive decay. In this radioactive atoms lesson students complete a lab to help them understand the relationship between radioactive atoms vs stable atoms.
Curated OER
Absolute Ages of Rocks
In this ages of rock worksheet, students review the processes involved with determining the ages of rocks which includes the radioactive decay of carbon-14. This worksheet has 5 matching and 5 short answer questions.
Curated OER
Absolute Ages of Rocks
In this rocks worksheet, students review the process of absolute dating of rocks and compare it to the relative dating process. This worksheet has 16 fill in the blank questions.
Curated OER
How Do We Measure Absolute Time?-Geologic Clocks
In this absolute time learning exercise, students define radiometric dating, tree rings and varves as means to measure absolute time. They are given information about each of these methods of dating.
Smithsonian Institution
National Museum of Natural History: Paleobiology: Absolute Dating
An explanation of radiometric or absolute dating of geological formations based on using the half-life of radioactive elements to figure out how old given rock layers are. A link on the left provides information about relative dating as...
Other
Milton J. Rubenstein Museum: Determining the Age of Rocks and Fossils [Pdf]
This set of activities from the Milton J. Rubenstein Museum of Science & Technology has students investigating how relative dating and absolute dating methods are used to determine the age of rocks and fossils.
McGraw Hill
Mc Grawl Hill: Dino Dig
A virtual lab allows you to do radiometric dating on dinosaur bones. You'll be using a mass spectrometer and utilizing several steps of the scientific method.
US Geological Survey
The Numeric Time Scale
This is a good source for getting an in-depth description of using radioactive decay to measure the ages of rocks. In addition to describing the process of radiometric dating, this resource also includes a geologic time scale and four...
Georgia Department of Education
Ga Virtual Learning: Geologic Time and Correlation
In this amazing interactive tutorial you will learn about what methods are used by geologists to learn about the history of the Earth. Investigate a geologic time scale and learn about how scientists have developed and organized a record...