Syllabus - Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy

Assessment statement Obj Notes7.2.4 Outline the biological effects of ionizingradiation.2 Students should be familiar with the direct andindirect effects of radiation on structures withincells. A simple account of short‐term and longterm effects of radiation on the body is required.Aim 8: There are moral, social and environmentalaspects to consider here.TOK: Correlation and cause, and risk7.2.5 Explain why some nuclei are stablewhile others are unstable.Half-life7.2.6 State that radioactive decay is arandom and spontaneous processand that the rate of decay decreasesexponentially with time.7.2.7 Define the term radioactive half‐life. 17.2.8 Determine the half-life of a nuclide from a 3decay curve.7.2.9 Solve radioactive decay problems involvingintegral numbers of half-lives.3assessment, can also be looked at.3 An explanation in terms of relative numbers ofprotons and neutrons and the forces involved is allthat is required.1 Exponential decay need not be treatedanalytically. It is sufficient to know that anyquantity that reduces to half its initial value in aconstant time decays exponentially. The nature ofthe decay is independent of the initial amount.7.3 Nuclear reactions, fission and fusion 4 hoursAssessment statement Obj NotesNuclear reactions7.3.1 Describe and give an example of an 2artificial (induced) transmutation.7.3.2 Construct and complete nuclear equations. 37.3.3 Define the term unified atomic mass unit. 1 Students must be familiar with the units MeV c −27.3.4 Apply the Einstein mass–energyequivalence relationship.7.3.5 Define the concepts of mass defect,binding energy and binding energy pernucleon.7.3.6 Draw and annotate a graph showingthe variation with nucleon number ofthe binding energy per nucleon.7.3.7 Solve problems involving mass defect andbinding energy.Fission and fusion7.3.8 Describe the processes of nuclear fissionand nuclear fusion.7.3.9 Apply the graph in 7.3.6 to account for theenergy release in the processes of fissionand fusion.7.3.10 State that nuclear fusion is the main sourceof the Sun’s energy.7.3.11 Solve problems involving fission and fusionreactions.21and GeV c −2 for mass.2 Students should be familiar with binding energiesplotted as positive quantities.32213