On 16th March Steph Bloomer from the Warrington office volunteered for the Society for Radiation Protection’s stand at The Big Bang Fair in Birmingham. The fair is a celebration of science, technology, engineering and maths for young people in the UK with over 70,000 visitors attending over four days, this year the SRP put a special emphasis on promoting maths and encouraging females into STEM activities.
The stand included three interactive experiments teaching the children about; radioactive decay with some real-life statistics, radiation protection principles of time, distance and shielding using Nerf guns to shoot some “willing” volunteers, and also allowed children to use detection equipment on some everyday objects that contain detectable amounts of naturally occurring activity. The stand was manned by radiation protection specialists giving the students the chance to ask questions and interact with scientists with the aim of promoting careers in radiation protection.