Results of Indoor Radon Measurements in Campania Schools Carried Out by Students of an Italian Outreach Project

Abstract

Outreach projects are often used to a limited extent for dissemination purposes and rarely have a significant impact on the student’s teaching and technical skills. The RadioLab project requires a proactive interaction between researchers and students by experimental activities for measuring environmental radioactivity, in particular radon gas. Buildings considered to be of radiological interest, such as schools, have been selected to carry out radon gas activity concentration measurements using solid-state nuclear track passive detectors LR-115. The results of annual measurements, made over 6 years and involving a total of 952 rooms, distributed in 67 schools throughout the Campania region, were collected. These data, deemed scientifically reliable (i) can be overlapped over geological characterization data enhancing the relationship between lithology and radon, (ii) confirmed data from the radon potential map of the Campania region about the distribution of indoor radon, and finally (iii) contributed to the collection of radon indoor data of the Campania region. The results obtained highlighted the need and effectiveness of increasing the network of schools involved in the outreach activity and in the implementation of experimental activities with applicative effects in the scientific and research sectors.

Keywords

• radon activity concentration
• educational project
• passive detectors