Museum Exhibit on Radiation Doses

[karav@bnlux1.bnl.gov (Kara Villamil)]

Hello Radsafers -

You may remember me - I posted last year requesting advice about how to
handle Brookhaven Lab's "troubles with tritium" at our sewage treatment
plant. I work in Brookhaven Lab's Public Affairs office as a science
writer.

(As an aside, that issue about pumping tritiated groundwater into the local
river's headwaters, so that underground tanks could be built, has been
somewhat defused. The Lab administration has decided to build the tanks
aboveground...but the activists and the suspicion remain with us, I can
assure you!)

Anyway, this request for help is of a much more lighthearted, though no
less important, nature. I've been asked to help our Science Museum, which
has more than 25,000 visitors aged 5 and up each year, prepare an exhibit
on radiation. It has to be simple, colorful, informative and, oh yeah, fun.
I hope to ask for advice from our own crew of HPs here on site, but I also
wanted to pass my idea by the whole listserv group. If you have any other
ideas, or know of places that have exhibits with a similar aim, please let
me know BY DIRECT E-MAIL.

Here was my idea: Basically, it would ask people to match up what they
_think_ is the radiation dose from a given source or pathway (in millirem)
to a cartoon of that source or pathway. It would be a big white board, with
a lot of colorful cartoon people and objects scattered around it
illustrating sources of potential radiation exposure. (e.g. an airplane, an
x-ray machine, the ground, different foods, living in the mountains, and of
course, Brookhaven Lab.)

Each object or scenario would have a description and a piece of Velcro with
adhesive backing stuck next to it. The museum-goers would be presented with
a basket of small wooden circles with different numbers (doses) painted on
them and Velcro on the back. Then, they'd be asked to match up the dose
number with the pathway.

This would allow them to express what they feel is the most "risky" thing,
in terms of radiation exposure. Then, the tour guide would put any wooden
circles that were incorrectly placed into their correct places (using a
cheat sheet), showing the visitors that what they thought was the dose from
a chest x-ray is actually much lower/higher, and that the dose from
Brookhaven Lab is actually much lower/higher, etc.

If you have any input on this idea, or other suggestions, please send
DIRECT E-MAIL (don't just hit reply!) to me at karav@bnl.gov

Thanks!

--Kara Villamil
Brookhaven National Lab Public Affairs
karav@bnl.gov