1. Conceptual thinking versus plug-and-chug problem solving: Radiocarbon dating and interactive animated spreadsheets Scott A. Sinex and Barbara A. Gage Prince Georges Community College Presented at ACS MARM, College Park, MD, May 2011

2. The classic decay equation where P = number of parent nuclei, P o = parent number at t = 0, t = time, and k = rate (decay) constant P D parent daughter So do we just plug-and-chug out some ages?

3. How do the General Chemistry textbooks do? Todays discussion

4. So can we approach the topic of radiocarbon dating from the conceptual thinking direction and in an interactive fashion using spreadsheets?

5. http://academic.pgcc.edu/~ssinex/excelets/age_dating_3.xls The radioactive decay concept

6. The P o assumption in radiocarbon dating

7. The input-output model

8. Dating and possible uncertainties

9. Assessment… Eight questions – maximum score of 30 points

10. Student Survey Feedback (n = 24 students) Ease of overall use of the Radiometric Dating III: Carbon-14 Method Excelet: real difficult difficult so, so easy real easy 2.5% (3) 8.3% (2) 29.2 (7) 41.7% (10) 8.3% (2) I like the interactive nature of Excelets because it lets me play & experiment discover on my own think all of these dont know 18.5% (5) 22.2% (6) 18.5% (5) 29.6% (8) 7.4% (2)

11. In the end… A more conceptual approach Numerical experimentation Higher-order questions addressed More science process and it appears students liked it

12. More on radiometric dating Sinex, S.A. (2010) Radiometric Dating for Novice Learners: Visualizing, Modeling, and Simulating via Animated Spreadsheets, Spreadsheets in Education 4 (2), Article 5 Radiometric dating – D/P methods Radiocarbon dating http://academic.pgcc.edu/~ssinex/excelets/chem_excelets Excelets

13. More info… Scott Sinex ssinex@pgcc.edu http://academic.pgcc.edu/~ssinex Barb Gage bgage@pgcc.edu http://academic.pgcc.edu/~bgage Thanks for attending!!!

14. excelets