Ultraviolet
light from the Sun and other sources can cause skin and eye
damage. Using the following ratings see if you can predict
which activities might expose you to harmful ultraviolet light.
 |
| Huge |
immediate damage, possibly
permanent |
| Very large |
serious damage |
| Large |
sunburned |
| Moderate |
reddened |
| None |
no apparent effect |
| |
|
 |
| 1. |
Living in Tucson, Arizona and working all Saturday on a sunny
September day fixing the roof. Forgot to put on a hat and
decided not to use any sun lotion. Since it is still warm,
decided to work without a shirt. |
|
|
 |
| 2. |
Spending all day Saturday in September reading a great book
on the patio. |
|
|
|
| 3. |
Still in Tucson in September. It's fall football time. Sitting
in the stadium for a 2 p.m. game. We ended up on the sunny
side of the stadium. We forgot to bring a hat or any sunscreen
lotion. |
|
|
|
| 4. |
Working all day and all night at the physics lab, under fluorescent
lights and with computer monitors and tv screens. Keeping
the robots in line is fun! |
|
|
|
| 5. |
Running a dance club filled with special ultraviolet lights.
The glow-in-the-dark posters look great, but the lights are
on all night.
|
|
|
|
| 6. |
The house is lit by lots of incandescent
bulbs. Many of them are halogens, like this one.
|
|
|
|
|
7.
|
 Going
Further
Try to use an ultraviolet light
meter to measure ultraviolet exposures. Since meters are hard
to find, can you devise a way to use ultraviolet sensitive
beads to predict which activities will have the greatest ultraviolet
exposure? |
|
|
|
Answers:
- Huge
- Moderate, if shaded.
Large if not, or you can view the sky in many directions.
- Large to very large.
- None
- None to moderate. These
bulbs only emit Ultraviolet A and very little of that.
But they do get hot, so don’t get burned.
- None
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