News & Events
Thurso High School Pupils Learn About Nuclear Decommissioning
18 January 2005
Staff from RWE NUKEM recently gave a series of presentations and demonstrations at Thurso High School to show pupils the variety of work undertaken during “nuclear decommissioning”, particularly focusing on Dounreay.
During the afternoon 60 third year pupils studying science and technology watched a presentation that introduced some of the issues and challenges of nuclear decommissioning. Each pupil then participated in three workshop sessions: Working with Radiation, Solving Engineering Problems, and Radiation and the Environment. These sessions included exercises simulating the detection of radiation, the control of contamination, and the use of remote handling techniques. As well as the hands on demonstration of the use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), RWE NUKEM’s all-terrain monitoring vehicle attracted particular interest. In a “feely-box” competition pupils identified, by touch alone, typical materials collected during environmental sampling (sheep droppings were represented here by raisins for health and hygiene reasons!). They also solved an engineering problem associated with removing coolant from Dounreay’s Prototype Fast Reactor (PFR).
Pupils participated enthusiastically in all the activities and demonstrated a genuine interest in all the topics. Comments such as “enjoyable”, “brilliant” and “RWE NUKEM is a really cool place to work and it looks fun” indicate that the afternoon was a great success. The objectives of giving young people an insight into the variety of work, the interesting challenges and the wide range of skills required to decommission nuclear facilities safely were certainly achieved.