Training Future Engineers to Be Ghostbusters: Hunting for the Spectral Environmental Radioactivity

Abstract

Although environmental radioactivity is all around us, the collective public imagination often associates a negative feeling to this natural phenomenon. To increase the familiarity with this phenomenon we have designed, implemented, and tested an interdisciplinary educational activity for pre-collegiate students in which nuclear engineering and computer science are ancillary to the comprehension of basic physics concepts. Teaching and training experiences are performed by using a 4" × 4" NaI(Tl) detector for in-situ and laboratory γ-ray spectroscopy measurements. Students are asked to directly assemble the experimental setup and to manage the data-taking with a dedicated Android app, which exploits a client-server system that is based on the Bluetooth communication protocol. The acquired γ-ray spectra and the experimental results are analyzed using a multiple-platform software environment and they are finally shared on an open access Web-GIS service. These all-round activities combining theoretical background, hands-on setup operations, data analysis, and critical synthesis of the results were demonstrated to be effective in increasing students' awareness in quantitatively investigating environmental radioactivity. Supporting information to the basic physics concepts provided in this article can be found at http://www.fe.infn.it/radioactivity/educational.

Measurement of the angular correlation between the two gamma rays emitted in the radioactive decays of a 60Co source with two NaI(Tl) scintillators

“…Typical experiments with NaI(Tl) detectors are designed to measure the gamma-ray energy spectra [7] and possibly also the activity of natural or artificial radioactive sources (see for instance refs. [8][9][10]). These experiments are appropriate for a laboratory course on detectors since they afford students the opportunity to come to better understandings about the interactions of photons with matter and to become familiar with a class of detectors which have a wide field of applications in nuclear and high-energy physics.…”

Low budget gamma spectroscopy

“…Gamma spectroscopy experiments are a valuable exercise in undergraduate physics and engineering laboratories [1][2][3]. They offer students the opportunity to learn about detector calibration and to perform measurements of environmental gamma radiation, and they illustrate and supplement material on nuclear physics covered in the classroom.…”