Re: High School Health Physics -Reply

[Charles Willis <CAW@nrc.gov>]

Bill,

Your comments are a cause for concern; have we not communicated adequately
about the Science Teachers' Workshop program?  Joel's question was directly
related to that program.

This program really took off after the 1991 Midyear Symposium in North Carolina
although such workshops had been conducted earlier by the South Texas Chapter
and perhaps others.  The idea is to teach the teachers about radiation.  One
element of the program was/is to give instruments to the teachers so they can do
some demonstrations for their students.  This was difficult because instruments
tend to cost more than most chapters can afford.  Then FEMA decided (or was
ordered) to cut their radiological program so they provided a lot of old civil defense
instruments (CDV-700) for our use.  The limited sensitivity of the instruments and
the limited strength of the unlicensed sources make quantitative experiments
difficult.  Thus Joel's question.  We know how to do a number of qualitative
demonstrations (source detection, shielding, distance attenuation, etc.) but it is not
easy to get quantitative, it is hard to measure something as simple as inverse
square attenuation.  

The point, however, is that these instruments are not being given out without the
related information.  The purpose of the effort is to give the teachers enough
information to enable them to address the issues realistically.  The teachers who
have attended the Baltimore-Washington Chapter workshops certainly go away
knowing that the calibration question is moot; they are not going to be measuring
dose rates but they can detect above-background radiation levels from Fiesta
Ware, smoke detector sources,  thorium impregnated lantern mantles, and the like.

In my opinion, our best hope of having even a quasi-informed public is to teach the
teachers.  It is a huge task considering our limited resources but nothing else
seems to offer any hope.

Charlie Willis
caw@nrc.gov
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