Radiometric Dating for Novice Learners: Visualizing, Modeling, and Simulating via Animated Spreadsheets

Abstract

Radiometric dating is introduced to beginning students in a real-world fashion through animated spreadsheets. Students discover the behavior of the parent-daughter relationship in radioactive decay, how the parent-daughter ratio yields the age, and a number of assumptions involved in radiometric dating. After exploring the concepts, and with some elementary mathematical modeling skills, students analyze data from the literature.