RE: High School Health Physics

["Jerry Koske" <jerry.koske@home.com>]

The following was used for children below high school age at the Omaha
Children's Museum.

One demonstration used with a group of children ranging in age from 5 to 14
is to get a set of plastic easter eggs and place a latern mantle containing
Th-232 inside one of the eggs. (Note: Coleman no longer uses Th-232 in it's
mantles, I use Primus mantles).  Then get a child to use the GM counter to
locate the egg containing the radioactive source.

Tell the children that they are radioactive. Show them a trace from a whole
body counter and point out the K-40 peak. Ask them if they know of anything
else that contains potassium, someone will suggest a banana. Pull out a
banana on a piece of orange Fiestaware. Let them use the GM detector to
detect the "banana" activity. Remove the banana from the Fiestaware and let
the use the GM detector to detect the banana activity again. Ask them if
they can explain the difference. Allow them to discover that it is the plate
that has the high activity.

Another demonstration that was used was to lay out about 20-25 rocks with
one of them being Pitchblende. Allow the children to use the GM counter to
"prospect" for Uranium ore.



Jerry E. Koske, CHP
Midwest Environmental Radiation Sciences, Inc.
jerry.koske@home.com