Student Exploration: Nuclear Reactions
[Note to teachers and students: This Gizmo was designed as a follow-up to the Nuclear Decay
Gizmo. We recommend doing that activity before trying this one.]
Vocabulary: chain rea
...
Student Exploration: Nuclear Reactions
[Note to teachers and students: This Gizmo was designed as a follow-up to the Nuclear Decay
Gizmo. We recommend doing that activity before trying this one.]
Vocabulary: chain reaction, CNO cycle, catalyst, deuterium, electron volt, fission, fusion,
isotope, nuclear reaction, positron, positron emission, proton-proton chain
Prior Knowledge Questions (Do these BEFORE using the Gizmo.)
The chart to the right gives the isotope
name, element name, number of protons, and
number of neutrons of three isotopes.
1. What do you notice about the isotope
number and the sum of protons and
neutrons?
2. The element symbol for uranium-238 is . This means U-238 has a total mass of 238
and contains 92 protons. Write the element symbols for the isotopes in the table:
Hydrogen-1 Carbon-12 Uranium-235
Gizmo Warm-up
The Nuclear Reactions Gizmo simulates a particle accelerator.
Particle accelerators speed up atoms to very high velocities, then
crash the atoms together with enough energy to cause changes called
nuclear reactions. There are three particle beams available in this
Gizmo, protons, neutrons, and helium-3 nuclei.
1. Click Fire Proton to engage the first particle beam.
What happens?
2. Colliding particles don¶t alZa\s react. Click Reset, and then click Fire neutron.
A. Does a reaction occur?
B. Explain:
Isotope Protons Neutrons
Hydrogen-1 1 0
Carbon-12 6 6
Uranium-235 92 143
Alexa Nissim 6420
H E
No
The isotope number is equal to the sum of the protons and neutrons.
Proton joins nucleus
Neutron traveled through the nucleus
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