What do you know about radioactivity?
On Friday, Nov. 3, a chemist concluded Utah State University Science Unwrapped's part one of the Building on Basics series with a presentation on radioactive materials. Chemistry Professor Scott Ensign demonstrated a Geiger counter — an electronic instrument used for detecting and measuring ionizing radiation.
"The more sound you hear — the more of those clicks you hear — the more particles of radiation are streaming out from this material,” Ensign said. “To understand radioactivity we have to understand what the universe is made of — matter and energy."
Lauren Cordova attended the presentation with her younger brothers.
"I know a lot about like the atomic bomb and things like that. But I didn't really know the science that went into it,” Cordova said.
"Nuclear reactions, fusion, fission release tremendous amounts of energy," Ensign said.
"It was really cool to like learn about everything that goes into that atom, how it becomes unstable, and different things that are like household items that are radioactive,” Cordova said.
“Here’s an interesting thing. MRIs — they are an imaging technique using radiation that is not radioactive,” Ensign said.
“I recently got an MRI cause I tore my ACL and meniscus, and so I thought I was exposing myself to all this radioactive activity. But it was really interesting to learn like, an x-ray has this amount of radioactivity and MRIs actually don’t have any,” Cordova said.
"Radioactive materials, as you've seen, are all around you and you should not be overly worried about them,” Ensign said.
A chemist himself, Kennedy Mpungu brought his kids to the presentation so they could learn more about science.
“I want them to see what chemistry can do,” Mpungu said.
Mpungu said he learned something new about radioactive materials, as well. “I didn’t know that it was something that we should worry about in our home,” he said.
"The only radioactive exposure I would be concerned about is radon. A lot of Utah homes have dangerous levels, test your home for radon,” Ensign said.
Part two of the Building on Basics series begins Jan. 19 with a presentation about rotational forces.
To watch full presentations from Science Unwrapped you can visit USU's College of Science YouTube channel here. You can learn more about Science Unwrapped's upcoming events here.
