Abstract
Kelp contains naturally occurring radioisotopes. Edible kelp flakes were used to fabricate a disk-shaped radiation source by a method involving compression and formation. This method is suitable for fabricating kelp radiation sources and does not require any special skills or techniques. The kelp radiation sources were used in an educational course on radiation and their suitability for use in the classroom was assessed by performing two tests on the dependence of the radiation count rate on distance and shielding. The distance dependence test demonstrated that the relationship between distance and radiation count rate could be explained by the inverse-square law, while the shielding dependence test showed that the shielding effectiveness increased with mass density and that the radiation count rate decreased exponentially with shielding thickness. It was concluded that the compression and formation method was suitable for fabricating kelp radiation sources that are effective educational tools for illustrating the existence of naturally occurring radioisotopes and demonstrating the principles of radiation protection.
