Earth Day Experience

[Thomas Gleich Harrison <tomh@jove.acs.unt.edu>]

I would like to share with the RADSAFE community the experience I had
this past weekend with Earth Day. Last year's celebration caught my
attention in that while surveying the people attending the Earth Day
festivities I viewed this as a golden opportunity to reach an
important element of society  and introduce naturally
occurring radiation and radioactive materials in the environment.. in
other words, we wanted everybody to drop by and meet NORM ! These people
seemed to be the perfect group to reach out to with an attempt to explain 
that ionizing radiations and radioactive materials are part and
parcel of our natural environment and very importantly, that there is no
difference between the radiations emitted by naturally occurring
radioactive elements in our environment and those produced artifically
using reactors and/or accelerators.  With this in mind, we contacted the
organizers of this year's event and received enthusiastic and encouraging 
support for what we
wanted to do. We put a great deal of effort into the planning and
prepartion of the display entitled "COME ON BY AND MEET NORM...." which in
fact also received pre-event press coverage and public notification right
along with all the other events that were scheduled. The organizers
thought
that what I was proposing was unique and they were
genuinly excited about the display. I have absolutley no problem with the
support I recieved. 

This is what we did: 
It was projected that we would
have around 3000 attendees and that I could expect maybe at least 500 to
pass through the display. I asked for and received a classroom area for
the display that was directly off the main hallway where most all
attendees
would at one time or another congregate. I was using exempt sources but
I still wanted to have control over the entrance and exit to the room for 
security pueposes. I
had 6 different handouts and made 1000 copies of each. The handouts 
explained the nature of ionizing radiation and the difference
between
non-ionizing and ionizing radiations, radiation detection, the history of
uranium, background radiation and it's origins, radioactive materials in
the home and a discussion of the Radiation Protection Professional which
was intended to be a bit of a career promo.
We also had eight(8) tables of displays including the following:
1. Introductory materials with a display of radiation detection
instiuments. 
2. an assortment of about two dozen rocks three of which were
uranium/ thorium ores. I also had on the table a Ludlum GM
detector/pancake porbe with
audible output so that each person could have hands-on use of the
detector and
discover for  themselves which of the rocks were radioactive and
which were not, since from
physical appearance they could not be distinguished. The display was
desigend to catch the attention of the public and included not just the
radioactive ores but also fossils, petrified wood and a handaxe circa
35,000 BC. 
3. we had samples of solids and powders consisting of ordinary dirt,
talcum
powder, uranyl nitrate and pitchblende with a meter available for the
visitor to determine which were the radioactive materials and which
wer not.
4. we had a phantom on display with an explanation of it's use.
5. we had a table top GM set up with audible output and oscilliscope
display to demonstrate our ability to convert unseen radiations into
an audible
and visual response. This display also demonstrated the effect of
shielding
using different materials and the affect of distance on radiation
intensities.
6. we had a display of materials that could be found in the public
domain including lamp illuminators, DC-10 depeleted counter weights,
uranium
nitrate from the Manahattan Project(that's what I was told) 
pre-1945(historical purposes only), the proverbial smoke detector  and
a plate of FiestaWare. Bananas and Brazil nuts were included. 
7. we set up  a computer program which could simulate
background
radiations, the 1/D2 law, shielding materials and their affect on
radiation
attentuation, the half life decay for 5 different radiosiotopes and a
cloud chamber experiment. This program was set up so that even a child
could use it.. The program itself was designed by
Judith Ernst of the Santa Fe Community College circa 1990. It is an
excellent program for demonstrating the behavior of beta and gamma
radiations.
8. we set up a NUCLEUS Mod 256D MCA with several different source(Cs, Co,
Ba and U) for the purpose of demonstrating that the is no difference
between naturally occurring radioactive materials in the environment(U)
and artifically produced radioactive materials(Cs,Co and Ba) and to
demonstrate
how energy can be used to distinguish between and identify different
radioactive materials. Including uranium in this demostration was an
important ingredient. It was set up for public use and all that was
required was that three buttons need be pressed: erase, count and display.
Again, even a child
could do it. 
9. we hid a source in the room and provided a scintillator
that could be
used by the visitor to located the source and gave candy or posters to
those who were  successful.

Thank you for your patience in reading this thus far. I just wanted to
enmphasize that this was a very serious and fairly elaborate, well planned
attempt to educate the public regarding radiation in the environment. 

But
now for the results: of the 3000 or so potential visitors to the display,
we had a total of eleven(11) people venture into the display area, and
I remember
them well. Two were former students who only wanted to talk about 
grades in my class, three were enhibitors from displays just outside my
room(Boeing Aircraft and the Municiple Water Facility), two were
photographers from the school newspaper, one young mother with a small
son who took great pleasure in pounding the pancake probe against rocks
while mom looked on in amusement, two sincerly interested
people and one middle age male who
seemed to have an attention of no more than 15 seconds. NO one sat down
and
used either the computer program or the MCA demonstration. Procedures for
the use of all equipment wereclearly displayed, but each required a
little time to digest. 

So why the failure:
1. poor display location. Maybe but not really. Many people looked in but
few ventured into the room. One young mother in particular caught my
attention. She had two children with her and one child darted directly
into the room. The young mother immediately
grabed the child, smiled and left. Many looked in... few ventured in. 
2.
a
hostile crowd... maybe, but that's  too simple an explanation. Most were
residents of Denton and in every way seemed "normal", albeit
disinterested and maybe uncertain. 
3. fear... perhaps(see 1. above)... I had a GM meter at the
front entrance with the audio on to record background radiation. Maybe it
should have been turned off.... 
4. ignorance is bliss....and few want to really learn.  Again perhaps.
There is in fact ample evidence that we do live in a very  blissful society... 
so draw your own conclusions.
5. Rutherford's Statement regarding  "Each snowflake and raindrop that
falls from the sky carries to the earth radioactive material.... "etc.
which I posted on the placard outside the room inviting people to view the
display. But this is farfetched and instead should have stimulated
interest.....
5. not sufficiently entertaining ..... maybe. 
4. just a bad idea.... I don't think so. I still think it is a good idea
to
reach out to the public and at least attempt  to get the message
across. 

So why only 11 out of 3000. Clearly we have a very serious problem that I
suggest will only get worse. I think that perhaps I could have put one
radioactive ore sample next to a piece of granite with a clicking GM meter
on a table outside the room and probably got far greater interest. In that
case there would really be no need to think..... However, I set up the
display for the purpose of educating the public. The
visitor had to spend a little time with the display to receive the full
benefit. My impression is that fear and ignorance played a very important
roll. In fact, after the event was over and I was clearing the display, I
put several meters and a carton with some of the samples(nonradioactive) 
in a
box on a cart and proceeded to the elevator. While in the
elevator with the cart a male with two children approached the elevator
and
stopped short, pulling the chdren back, stating that he would wait for the
elevator to return. There was more than ample room in the elevator for all
of us... including the cart and children... but he refused the offer. I
recognized this
person as being a university faculty member......

I learned a great deal from this experience and I've come away somewhat 
cynical. I learned that if a person
doesn't want to learn, they cannot be forced to learn even though the
opportunity is carefully presented. I still think it was a good idea and I
would be more than happy to share with anyone my experiences and the 
details of what we tried to do and how we did it. Had this been a success
I was hoping that we might be able to develop a nation wide effort to do
something similar to what I attempted to do as an itegral part of Earth
Day next year. But as I told the organizers, 11 visitors(actually only 5)
out of 3000 potential visitors really isn't worth the effort. Clearly
one problem was that I was attempting to educate while most were in a 
festive and fun n' games mood. Most of
the displays involved moon walks, puppet shows and talking parrots, and
the food was free.......
although it wasn't anything you'd really want to eat! And I have to
admit 
that I too didn't bother to stop by a visit the Flushing Display
and witness a demonstration of the Squeeze Tight Water
Pinching  Toilet System ...... oh well, each to one's own. And one last
item I'll leave you with... on Friday 
a conference of
environmentalists was winding up while I was setting up my display. I
went to get a cup
of coffee and I couldn't find a pot with HOT coffee in it, all coffees 
were luke
warm at best. I asked someone where the HOT coffee was and was told that
there was none, and that if we could all learn to drink luke warm coffee
instead of piping HOT coffee we could save a lot of energy. I gave my
coffee back .... so what does that tell you.    

Thanks for reading all this..... it was a very interesting but
disapointing experience. Any comments would be much appreciated....
incidentally, I'll probably try to do the same thing next year.....
and please excuse the typos... it's late !!!  

Tom Harrison, Ph.D.
RSO
University of North Texas
Denton, TX

e-mail: tomh@facstaff.cas.unt.edu
          

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