Radiometric Dating
Your child can explain how rocks are dated. Some atoms break down at a steady rate. Measuring how much has broken down gives the rock's age.
In curriculum terms
Explain how radiometric dating works — radioactive isotopes decay at a known rate (half-life), so measuring the ratio of parent to daughter isotope in a rock or fossil gives an absolute age; distinguish between carbon-14 (useful up to ~50,000 years) and uranium-lead (useful for millions to billions of years)
Ages are typical, not deadlines — follow your child’s pace. How to help at home →
How to tell they’ve got it
Tick these off as you see them — no test required.
🖨 Print this page to keep the checklist — it prints beautifully.
Try this together
If your child was told a dinosaur bone was dated using uranium-lead radiometric dating, could they explain what that means — what is decaying, why the rate of decay is useful, and roughly why scientists don't use carbon-14 for 70-million-year-old bones?
Where this sits on the map
Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.
solid = must come firstdashed = helps
Curriculum alignment
Where this fits in the official school curriculum — our best automated guess, not yet checked by a person.
This skill sits outside the F–6 Australian Curriculum — no candidate code matched (v0.1). No NSW K–6 outcome code matched (v0.1). No Victorian Curriculum 2.0 code matched (v0.1).