Successful NNSW Event at Argonne National Laboratory

We held a very successful NNSW event at Argonne National Laboratory's visitor/information center on Monday morning. We hosted 49 advanced placement chemistry students, their teacher (Margaret Stokes) and 2 chaperones for a morning of presentations and hand-on activities. After a presentation about the basics of radiation, students did some hands-on activity with radiation monitors and demonstrated that increasing distance from a radiation source reduced exposure. Another presentation was about how radiation measurements were taken in Japan following the tsunami's impact on the nuclear power plants there.

Students assembled a cloud chamber and observed the tracks showing where particles emitted from a radioactive material had passed through the chamber. Groups of students took apart web cams to access the sensor inside and demonstrate its ability to show both alpha and beta radiation from a sealed source. Presenters spoke about career opportunities involving nuclear science and technology.

Students were very responsive and enthusiastic.

As a follow-up, we expect to arrange a speaker to visit the teacher's classroom during the spring.