Thinking about actions to take: Radiations that Ionise

There's a good chance you could improve your teaching if you were to:

Try these

• dealing with the properties of ionising radiations before exploring their sources
• linking the behaviour of nuclear radiations to the behaviour of radiations from other sources
• exploiting the photon model to make the link between ionising and non-ionising radiations
• using the introduction of detectors as an opportunity to reinforce the process of ionising
• relating half-thickness and half-life
• comparing risks from ionising radiations to risks from other sources

Teacher Tip: Work through the Physics Narrative to find these lines of thinking worked out and then look in the Teaching Approaches for some examples of activities.

Avoid these

• treating ionising radiation as a completely isolated phenomenon
• getting bogged down in the different measures of ionising radiations
• not challenging gut-reaction reponses

Teacher Tip: These difficulties are distilled from: the research findings; the practice of well-connected teachers with expertise; issues intrinsic to representing the physics well.