Comparing The Radiation Levels of Soil Between Industrial Areas and Non-Industrial Areas

The purpose of our experimentation was to determine if soil from heavy industrial areas had higher radiation levels than soil from non-industrial areas. We gathered soil from five sites near heavy industry and soil from five sites with no industry nearby. We collected ten samples from each site for a total of 100 samples. We used a Pasco Scientific Geiger/Mueller Detector to test the radiation level of each sample. We performed two-sample t-tests to determine if the difference between the two data sets was significant. The first two-sample t-test we performed was between the industrial soil trials and the non-industrial soil trials. We can be 95% confident that our data was due to chance variation. We also performed two-sample t-tests between the background trials and the industrial soil trials, and the background trials and the non-industrial soil trials. We wanted to be sure if the equipment we used was sensitive enough to detect radiation variations in soil. In both cases, we can be 95% confident that our data was not due to chance variation. In conclusion, we found that while it was possible to determine the radiation levels of soil from industrial areas and non-industrial areas, but we did not find any significant difference between the radiation levels of the two areas.

Research Done By:

Jamie Bide
Sterling Heights

Sarah Kenning
Warren Mott

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