News & Events
Farr High School Pupils Learn About Decommissioning
19 November 2008
Eleven staff from Nuvia at Dounreay made a series of presentations and hands-on demonstrations at Farr High School on the North Coast of Sutherland to show pupils the variety of work undertaken during “nuclear decommissioning”, particularly at Dounreay.
During a busy afternoon 54 of the school’s 92 pupils from second, fourth and sixth years watched a presentation that introduced some of the issues and challenges of nuclear decommissioning. Each pupil then participated in three workshop sessions on Working with Radiation, Radiation and the Environment, and Solving Engineering Problems. These sessions included exercises simulating the detection of radiation using monitoring instruments, the control of contamination, and the use of remote handling techniques. The difficulties of carrying out simple tasks with everyday tools while wearing personal protective equipment were demonstrated. The demonstration of Nuvia’s all-terrain monitoring vehicle and its Global Positioning System attracted particular interest. In a competition pupils identified, by touch only, typical materials collected during environmental sampling. They also solved an engineering problem associated with removing liquid metal coolant from the Prototype Fast Reactor at Dounreay.
Pupils participated enthusiastically in all the activities and demonstrated a genuine interest in all the topics. The school and Nuvia consider the afternoon a great success, and pupils commented on the enthusiasm and communication skills of the visitors. The objectives of giving young people at transition points in their education 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.