Re: Mentoring

[JMUCKERHEIDE@delphi.com]

Ted,

A reaction:
 
> I lead a 4H rocketry group and had considered the idea of a 4H Health 
> Physics groups.  The kids are aged 9 through 19 and the project leader can 
> limit the age and number of participation.
> 
> I was trying to come up with WHAT I would present for the minimum requiste 
> 10 one hour meetings within what I perceived to be the realistic 
> constraints:
> 
> 1:  meetings held in a home (mine) in the neighborhood - ie. NOT a LAB
> 
> 2:  limited equipment .... mine again.
> 
> 3:  Keep them interested
> 
> 4:  Some kind of hands on displayable tangible project.
> 
> The more I thought about it the more I thought that they cannot even really 
> begin to get any orientation into HP without SOME understanding of 
> statistics/probability.  

I wouldn't think so. Orient to "radiation sources and uses", and use analogs,
like sunshine and light (beams/shades for collimation/shielding, etc.), to
address rad effectiveness and  rad safety and protection aspects. 

It would seem that it shouldn't be necessary to overly-quantify, or deal with
"statistics/probability", to "begin to get any orientation", though certainly
there is a potential if you find enough interest to then introduce such
substance.  

I guess my sense is that, if the subject of radiation/safety can't capture
interest WITHOUT statistics/probability, adding s/p (ugh)  won't get any MORE
potential interest   :-) 

> That age group tends to only see black and white and firmly believes that 
> random events are governed by LUCK and thus outcomes CAN be influenced.

Hmmm...  If governed by luck, how can they be influenced? I'm misinterpreting
something. 

> That to me seemed the major block.
> 
> Everything I was coming up with sounded too much like "Our Friend the Atom" 
> 50's/60's PR - which just wouldn't fly with today's kids NOR their parents.

I sense kids are getting more "accepting" about factual information, at least
if they DON"T have to know much about the underlying science or theories (too
much like 'school'). Need to pitch the Sesame Street/MTV Generation approach. 

I would focus the start on medical applications; start with basic facts about
dental/medical x-rays since many have first-hand experience!  Get some dental
x-rays from texts (any way to get any actual? maybe even their own? :-)  

Also, broken bones, etc;  extend into other diagnostics/MRI; lead into
isotopes vs radiographs, nuclear medicine isotopes/therapy (with light,
order-of-magnitude, exposure/dose descriptions). (Pick up on industrial
radiography as an extension of medical uses.) 

Then making medical isotopes; intro'ing rad wastes as radioactivity.  

Show early medical uses and abuses of radium; use to show radium, (and Marie
Curie), as a step in natural U and Th decay chains; intro to the radon decay
product and the significance of it being a noble gas for discharge to the
atmosphere, (and measuring Ra in te radium-burden population from how much is
exhaled!), then concerns and safety precautions about mine concentrations, and 
home indoor radon concentrations from discharges through the ground (and
whether you want to show Cohen's US radon data with its negative correlation
to lung cancer :-) 

> So add to the above
> 
> 5:  Evangelizing unacceptable
> 
> Comments, input, suggestions ANYTHING accepted ........

I'd appreciate hearing ("reading") about anything other ideas or what you
develop along these lines. 

Thanks.

Regards, Jim 

PS: Asked Mynemi again recently about ascii plot capability, and he now says
he will do something like a uucode/mime-type output, but no ascii plot. 
Arrgghh.  Any other ideas on tracking down old code? :-)