How to Graph Risk: Radiation Safety

Radiation is measured in rems, a radiation unit that's shorthand for Roentgen Equivalent in Man. It's a unit of measurement that helps describe how radiation affects a person biologically. Estimating how much radiation a person receives in rems is vital to their health. According to Vanderbilt Environmental Health and Safety, a single radiation dose of 50 rem or more is high enough to cause cancer in humans. Idaho State University states that at 300 rem and above, 50 percent of people will die from infections within two months if they don't receive medical attention; at a dose of over 1,000 rem, 100 percent of the people are likely to die. That's because the dose causes severe internal damage that's non-repairable. Graphing radiation risk is a way of visually seeing what is a safe--and a dangerous--level of rem exposure.

Things You'll Need

• Pencil
• Ruler
• Graph paper

Show More

Instructions

• 1

  Draw a horizontal line 5 inches long on the graph paper. Label this horizontal line (axis) "Dose (rem)." Make tick marks every 1/2 inch. Starting at the left corner, label the marks 0, 50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500 and 1,000.

• 2

  Starting at the left-hand edge of the horizontal line, draw a 4-inch line upward (vertically). Label this vertical line (axis) "Risk of cancer." Make tick marks every 1/2 inch. Starting at the bottom corner and working up, label these marks "unknown effects," "radiation sickness," "immune system damage," "severe internal damage (50 percent death)" and "severe internal damage (100 percent death)."

• 3

  Mark the following coordinates on your chart with a dot: (100, radiation sickness), (300, immune system damage), (400, 50 percent death) and (1,000, 100 percent death).

• 4

  Using a ruler, join the dots in a single line starting at the bottom-left corner and ending at (1,000, 100 percent death).