Our project:
Our assignment was to creatively create a presentation to show what we learned this unit. Our group decided to make a poster modeling how elements are created. We modeled the lifetime of stars. This project required a lot of research and I feel that I learned a lot about stars and how elements are created.
Concepts:
Our assignment was to creatively create a presentation to show what we learned this unit. Our group decided to make a poster modeling how elements are created. We modeled the lifetime of stars. This project required a lot of research and I feel that I learned a lot about stars and how elements are created.
Concepts:
- Subatomic particles: particles much smaller than atoms, for example: protons, neutrons, and electrons. These particles are the building blocks of the universe and the particles that are used to create elements.
- Fission: a process were the nucleus of an atom splits into two smaller nuclei
- Fusion: a reaction were two or more nuclei are combined to form one or more different nuclei. Fusion is how all elements up to iron are created in stars.
- Radioactive decay: the breakdown of a nucleus, causing the release of energy and matter
- Half-life: the time taken for a isotope to become half its original value
- Nucleosynthesis - the process of creating new elements by fusion or fission.
- Alpha particle: a helium nucleus emitted by radioactive substances
- Beta particle: a high-energy electron emitted during radioactive decay of an atomic nucleus
- Gamma rays: electromagnetic radiation caused from radioactive decay of a nucleus. It has the shortest wave length and highest energy of all electromagnetic waves. Its measured in meters and waves per second.
Reflection: During this project, I contributed mostly by doing research. I learned a lot during this project. Our group did not finish our poster during class time and a groupmate ended up taking the poster home to color it. Next time, I feel our group could use less words and show the concepts written down as pictures with fewer words to describe the models. This project helped me grasp the concept of how stars work.