MOUNT VERNON — To help ninth-grade science students at Mount Vernon High School understand nuclear energy, instructor Bonnie Schutte uses a chain reaction chamber consisting of mousetraps and pingpong balls.
When the initial “neutron” — the yellow pingpong ball — is put through a hole in the top of the chamber, it hits a mousetrap, standing in for the atomic nucleus. That releases another neutron — white pingpong ball — which then hits another mousetrap (atomic nucleus) and so on, creating a self-amplifying sequence of reactions or chain of events.
Schutte said the students were very intrigued with the demonstration.
“It showed me how chain reactions work with the neutrons,” said Devin Moran.
Conor Tazewell said the chamber helped him understand how neutrons could have such an effect on the reaction.
Since the reaction is self-amplifying, it takes a little while for the chain reaction to start, taking some students by surprise.
“It took a second for the traps to go off, then it really scared me,” said Alex Lambert.
Schutte said Dr. Terry Klopcic at Kenyon College provided the dimensions for the reaction chamber, and the Plexiglas top of the chamber was provided by Shamrock Plastics. Schutte said that was an important piece of the construction because it keeps the pingpong balls inside so that they will hit other mousetraps.
