Countries have national laws to control how radioactive materials are acquired, used and disposed of. These laws follow internationally agreed principles of radiological protection.

The following principles apply to schools:

• There should be a person designated to be responsible for the security, safety and proper use of radioactive sources.
• Sealed radioactive sources should be of a safe design and type suitable for school science.
• Sealed sources should be used whenever possible in preference to unsealed sources. Unsealed sources can only be justified when the scientific demonstrations would not be practicable using sealed sources.
• Records of all radioactive sources should be properly kept, showing what they are, when they were bought, when and by whom they have been used, and eventually, how they were disposed of.
• Radioactive sources should be used only when there is an educational benefit.
• Radioactive sources should be handled in ways that minimize both staff and student exposures.
• Sealed sources should be carefully checked periodically to make sure they remain in a safe condition.
• The school should have a suitable radioactivity detector in good working order.

UK regulation & guidance

Generally, school employers will insist you obtain their permission before acquiring new radioactive sources.

You must follow your employer’s safety guidance relating to the use the radioactive sources. Most school employers will require you to use either SSERC or CLEAPSS safety guidance, as follows:

In Scotland, safety guidance for use of radioactive sources in schools is issued by the Scottish Schools Equipment Research Centre (SSERC) and is available to members through their website.

In the rest of the UK and British Isles Crown Dependencies, guidance is available from CLEAPSS, the School Science Service. Their guidance document, L93, is freely available from their website, even to non-members.

In the UK...

• In classes where children are under the age of 16, the use of radioactive material shall be restricted to demonstrations by qualified science teachers, (which includes newly qualified teachers). However, closer inspection of devices containing low-activity sources such as diffusion cloud chambers is permitted provided the sources are fully enclosed within the devices and not removed during the inspection.
• Young persons aged 16 and over may use radioactive sources under supervision. Although the use of radioactive material is regulated, it should not be used as an excuse to avoid practical work. As the ASE points out, "Using the small sources designed for school science gives a good opportunity to show the properties of radioactive emissions directly, and to discuss the radiation risks. Just as importantly, it is an opportunity to review pupils' perception of risks, as they are likely to have constructed their own understanding from a variety of sources, including science fiction films and internet sites. If the work is restricted just to simulations, it may reinforce exaggerated perceptions of risk from low-level radiation.”

Summary of legislation (UK)

Updated October 2008

The following summarizes the somewhat complicated legislative framework in which schools are expected to work with radioactive sources in the UK. However, teachers do not need to obtain and study this legislation; this has been done by CLEAPSS and SSERC, and it is incorporated into their guidance in plain English.

In the European Union, member states have implemented the 1996 EU Basic Safety Standards Directive (as amended) that in turn reflects the 1990 International Commission on Radiological Protection recommendations. In the UK, this has been done through the Radioactive Substances Act 1993 (RSA93), which controls the security, acquisition and disposal of radioactive material, and the Ionising Radiations Regulations 1999 (IRR99) which controls the use of radioactive material by employers. Transport of radioactive material is controlled by The Carriage of Dangerous Goods and Use of Transportable Pressure Equipment Regulations 2007.

There are exemptions from parts of the RSA93 and schools can make use of The Radioactive Substances (Schools etc.) Exemption Order 1963, The Radioactive Substances (Prepared Uranium and Thorium Compounds) Exemption Order 1962, and others. These exemption orders are conditional and to make use of them and avoid costly registration with the Environment Agency (or SEPA in Scotland, or the Environment and Heritage Service in Northern Ireland) you must adhere to the conditions. Note that currently, these exemption orders are being reviewed.

The way in which these laws are implemented in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland varies. The Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) has withdrawn its guidance AM 1/92, and the associated regulations requiring this have been repealed. Consequently, purchase of radioactive sources by maintained schools in England is no longer regulated by the DCSF. The DCSF commissioned CLEAPSS to prepare and issue ‘Managing Ionising Radiations and Radioactive Substances in Schools, etc L93’ (September 2008) and has commended it to schools in England. Similar regulations relating to other educational institutions in the UK have not changed; English institutions for further education remain regulated through the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. Similarly, schools in Wales should follow the guidance from the Welsh Assembly Government Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills. Schools in Scotland should follow the guidance from the Scottish Government Education Directorate and associated guidance issued by SSERC. Schools in Northern Ireland should follow the guidance from the Department of Education Northern Ireland (DENI). The Crown Dependencies Jersey, Guernsey and Isle of Man are not part of the UK and schools and colleges should follow the guidance from their own internal government departments responsible for education.

In the UK, if an employer carries out a practice with sources of ionising radiations, including work with radionuclides that exceed specified activities (which is 100 kBq for Co-60, and 10 kBq for Sr-90, Ra-226, Th-232, Am-241 and Pu-239), the practice must be regulated according to the IRR99 and the employer must consult with a Radiation Protection Adviser (RPA). Since 2005, the RPA must hold a certificate of competence recognized by the Health and Safety Executive. Education employers are unlikely to have staff with this qualification, so the RPA will usually be an external consultant. Education employers need to notify the HSE 28 days before first starting work with radioactive sources. This is centralized at the HSE’s East Grinstead office.

Note: For higher risk work with radioactive material, the IRR99 requires designated areas, called controlled areas and supervised areas, to be set up if special procedures are needed to restrict significant exposure – special means more than normal laboratory good practice. It should never be necessary for a school to designate an area as controlled, and only in special circumstances would it be necessary to designate an area as supervised. The normal use of school science radioactive sources, including the use of school science half-life sources, does not need a supervised or controlled area.

Disposal of sources in the UK

Sources that become waste because they are no longer in a safe condition, or are no longer working satisfactorily, or are of a type unsuitable for school science, should be disposed of. In England and Wales, the Environment Agency has produced a guidance document through CLEAPSS that explains the available disposal routes. Similarly, SSERC has produced guidance for schools in Scotland. Schools in Northern Ireland should refer to DENI.

Health and safety statement

See the health and safety notes in each experiment. This is general guidance.

Health and safety in school and college science affects all concerned: teachers and technicians, their employers, students, their parents or guardians, and authors and publishers. These guidelines refer to procedures in the UK. If you are working in another country you may need to make alternative provision.

As students start experiments on ionisation, they will have a fairly basic model of atoms and molecules, as portrayed by the simple kinetic theory. They will know that solids, liquids and gases are made up of atoms and molecules. They may think of these as round blobs with no internal structure. These particles exert attractions on each other at short ranges of approach and, necessarily, repulsions at very short range. They bounce off each other in elastic collisions (energy stored kinetically is conserved) – more advanced students may understand that this is because the forces are the same on the way in as they are on the way out.

They will have heard of ions – probably in the context of chemical reactions, solutions and electrical conductivity. However, using ions to explain sparks may be a new idea. Ionisation and sparks show that electrons are easily knocked off neutral atoms and molecules. In these collisions, energy is not conserved – some of it is lost to remove the electrons. So the collisions are inelastic. This shows that the energies needed to remove electrons are of the order of the energy of a very fast moving particle (a few 100 m/s).

Their picture of the atom will develop. They will learn that it contains electrons, which are fairly easily detached. There must also be some positive material, probably holding most of the mass of the atom. The atom is held together in some unknown way.

A gold leaf electroscope measures potential difference between the leaf and the base (or earth).

The leaf rises because it is repelled by the stem (support). The leaf and its support have the same type of charge. A typical school electroscope will show a deflection for a charge as small as 0.01 pC (the unit pC is a pico coulomb, 1 × 10^-12 coulombs, equivalent to the charge on over 6 million electrons).

Charging an electroscope

There are a number of ways of charging an electroscope. They include:

Charging by contact. Rub an insulator to charge it up. Then stroke it across the top plate of the electroscope. This will transfer charge from the insulator to the electroscope. This method is direct and clear to students. However, the charge left on the electroscope will not always leave it fully deflected.

Charging by induction. This is a quick way to get a larger charge onto the electroscope. However, it can look a bit magical to students. So it should be used with some care.

Rub an insulator to charge it up. Bring it close to the top plate of the electroscope – but don’t let it touch. This will induce the opposite charge on the plate of electroscope leaving a net charge on the gold leaf, which will rise. Now touch the plate with you finger momentarily to earth it (still holding the charged insulator near the top plate). The charge on the top plate will be neutralised but there will still be a charge on the gold leaf. Let go of the plate and then take the charged insulator away. The charge that had been pushed down to the gold leaf will now redistribute itself over the plate and the leaf, leaving the whole thing charged. The leaf will show a good deflection.

Charging with an EHT or Van de Graaff generator. You can use a flying lead connected to one of these high voltage sources to charge up the gold leaf electroscope. This is quick, effective and obvious to students. The other terminal of the supply should be earthed. Connect the flying lead to the supply through a safety resistor.

Detecting small currents

The electroscope can be used to demonstrate that a small current is flowing in a circuit – for example in experiments to show the ionisation of the air.

Using the hook rather than the plate makes the electroscope more sensitive to small amounts of charge. A charge of around 0.01 pC will cause a noticeable deflection of the gold leaf. So it is possible to watch it rise (or fall) slowly due to a current as small as 1 pA.

Put the electroscope in series (as though it were an ammeter). Any charge that flows in the circuit will move onto the electroscope making the gold leaf rise. You may need to discharge the electroscope when you first switch on the power supply because there will be an initial movement of charge due to the capacitance in the circuit.

Alternatively, you can use the electroscope as a source of charge and watch it discharge. It is like a capacitor with its own display. Charge it up and then connect it into a circuit. If the circuit conducts, the electroscope (capacitor) will discharge and, at the same time, the leaf will display how much charge is left.

Using the electroscope as a voltmeter or electrometer

The electroscope has a very high (as good as infinite) resistance. If you earth the electroscope case, the electroscope measures potential so it is well suited to detecting potentials in electrostatic experiments. Without earthing, the quantity it is measuring is charge. This is related to p.d. (by its capacitance C , i.e. V = Q/C ). But it isn’t the same as p.d. because the capacitance can vary a lot – even during an experiment. Capacitance depends on the position of the electroscope, people nearby and so on.

So although the electroscope is useful as an indication of a voltage, it isn’t a reliable means of measuring it.

Cosmic radiation

School electroscopes are open to the air (more refined ones are in a vacuum). Cosmic radiation will ionise this air and cause a small leakage current. So the electroscope will discharge over time. Historically, the discharging of electroscopes led to the suggestion of the existence of cosmic radiation. Victor Hess and Carl Anderson shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1936, for discoveries related to cosmic radiation. The Nobel Award ceremony speech describes their work:

Nobel Prize in Physics 1936 Award ceremony speech