Education for environmental and radon indoor measurements at LASA, Physics Department of UNIMI

At the University of Milano, Physics Department is active for the Master Degree the didactic line in Health Physics related to themes and research that have as their common interest the ionizing radiation in its biomedical, environmental and nanotoxicological applications The relevant courses are Health Physics and Laboratory of Health Physics that are related to the fundamental concepts of the natural and artificial radioactivity, as well as the detectors for measurement, the applications of radiations, the dosimetric and radioprotection aspects. On this basis in the Laboratory classes the students are trained on the different techniques for measuring different type of radiations. One theme is the measure of Rn-222 with different kind of detectors selected as a function of the type of information to be obtained. We will present our laboratories, the instrumentation that the students have available for these types of measures and some of the results that they obtained. Parallel we started up a project devoted to students of Italian High Schools to make them more trusted about scientific culture and in particular to radioactivity theme that is in general misled because it is almost unknown. In particular the public links this concept to nuclear arms and its usage in uncorrected way to produce energy in the Nuclear Power Plans, even if in the last 50 years NPP for civil use has significantly fewer causalities than any other source of energy. The nuclear power’s association with nuclear weapons has contributed to its lack of acceptance in particular in Italy, where the “nuclear issue” is a taboo since a long time. The students are furnishing of a laboratory at their school in order to measure with rather simple devices, the natural component of the radioactivity that surround us and in which we are immersed. In this contest measurement of the Rn-222 concentration is particularly suited and up-to-date and allows to demonstrate that there are different types of radiations, and ionizing radiations are just a particular type, the ionizing radiations can be measured in some ways and that can be fun to discover and detect ionizing radiation. We will present the main goals and some results of the project.