Household radioactive materials? -Reply

[FRAMEP@ORAU.GOV]

Travis:

You've had some good responses on this one, theres little more to be
said. Radon decay products in air were mentioned- fitting because
they are the biggest contributer to the annual dose. With luck you
could do a nice demo if you can get an alpha detector: check out the
furnace filter; a paper towel smear of the TV screen (dampen the
towel a little before you take the smear and its best if the TV had
been used the night before); or a polyester sweater or jacket
(something with a static charge in other words). Another good demo,
which can be done with a gm, is showing the concentration of
naturally occuring radionuclides in the ash of a wood burning stove.

A disgustingly simple demo is to turn on the audio output a NaI
detector and point out that each one of the 1000+ cpm is a gamma of
the sort we are continuously expsoed to in our home. This is cheating
a little because the gammas can be coming from outside the home, but
hey.

Have fun.

Paul Frame
Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education
Professional Training Programs
framep@orau.gov