Activity C:

The Chernobyl Disaster

Teacher’s Briefing
Activity C: The Chernobyl Disaster
Further notes
Plenary activity
Curriculum links

Materials for Students

Question sheet
Map cards
A3 map

Download this resource

www.cnduk.org/activity-c
23
Activity C:
The Chernobyl Disaster: Activity overview

Concepts to examine Overview

Nuclear accidents, the effects of – In pairs or small groups, students match up the cards of information about the
radiation on humans, the effects of effects of the nuclear fallout from Chernobyl and discuss its effects.
radiation on the environment.
Instructions
Materials and space needed – Split the students into pairs or small groups and provide each group with a
Tables for pair/small group work, A3 copy of the map of Europe.
maps of Europe (if you do not have – Instruct the students to match the cards detailing the effects to the
access to a colour photocopier, then corresponding countries on the map.
further copies of the map are – In their pairs or small groups, ask the students to write down the countries in
available. distance order from the disaster. For each country, students should also list one
effect the radiation had on that area.
Learning outcomes – Go around the class asking groups in turn to feed back a country (and one
By the end of the lesson: effect) in distance order.
All students should be able to
identify what sort of power station Plenary
exploded and name an effect. To discuss:
– Imagine that you and your family had to leave your town at short notice due to
Most students will be able to name a nuclear disaster. What single item would you take with you? How would you
some of the effects and match them feel?
to the country where they occurred. – Why do you think that older people have returned to Pripyat, despite the high
danger of getting ill?
Some students will be able to
compare the disaster to other – The Chernobyl disaster is an example of how catastrophic the release of
nuclear explosions and discuss the radiation can be from a nuclear disaster. What other causes of nuclear disasters
similarities and differences. can you think of?

– Do you think a disaster like Chernobyl could happen in Britain today?

24
Activity C:
The Chernobyl Disaster: Further information

Where is Chernobyl? dangerous for varying lengths of time Illnesses and deaths
Chernobyl is about 1,500 miles from depending on their half-life. For Immediately after the accident about
Britain, 60 miles north of Kiev, capital of example: radioactive iodine-131 has a 30 people died but this was just the
Ukraine in eastern Europe. Now an half-life of 8 days, caesium-137 over 30 beginning of the deaths and illnesses.
independent country, in 1986 Ukraine years and plutonium 24,000 years. A Although it is impossible to say with
was part of the Soviet Union. Just to the wide range of radioactive elements were certainty that a particular cancer has a
north is the international border with thrown out by the explosion and fire. particular cause, statistics imply that the
Belarus, then also part of the Soviet accident at Chernobyl has had a
Union. Belarus was to be the country All radioactive materials are carcinogenic catastrophic effect on the populations
worst affected by the disaster. The – that is they can lead to cancer in of nearby areas. According to the
nuclear power station was Soviet people and animals. Different radio- United Nations Committee on the
designed and built. active materials are likely to affect effects of Atomic Radiation:
different parts of the body. Iodine-131,
What caused the Chernobyl for instance, attacks the thyroid gland, Among the residents of Belarus, the
Disaster? particularly in babies and young Russian Federation and Ukraine, there
In the early morning of 26 April 1986, children. had been up to the year 2002 about
one of the four reactors at the 4,000 cases of thyroid cancer reported
Chernobyl nuclear power station ran What happened to those in children and adolescents who were
out of control while engineers were nearby? exposed at the time of the accident,
running safety tests. Within four Direct casualties of the explosion were and more cases can be expected during
seconds, a power surge of 100 times rushed off to hospitals as far away as the next decades. Notwithstanding
normal output led to a violent explosion Moscow. Then it became clear that problems associated with screening,
and fire. The 1,000 tonne concrete top because of the intense radioactive many of those cancers were most likely
of the reactor building was blown off fallout, all the surrounding population caused by radiation exposures shortly
and huge chunks of blazing, radioactive would have to be evacuated. Police after the accident. (UNSCEAR, 2007)
material were blasted into the air like a surrounded Pripyat, the nearest town
volcanic explosion. The reactor burned (2.5km away), set up road blocks and Other reports predict deaths from
furiously and highly radioactive debris prepared to deal with any panic. related cancers to be in their thousands.
was scattered around and inside the As scientists and medical experts learn
reactor building. The reactor burned for On Sunday 27 April, at 1.50pm, local more about the long-term effects of
a week, spewing out radiation, and was radio announced the start of a mass radiation exposure, estimates of the
eventually put out by helicopters evacuation. At 2pm, 1,100 buses began numbers who will die as a result of the
dumping tonnes of sand, and to pick up the 40,000 residents. Almost disaster increase. The World Health
firefighters and site workers fighting the all belongings had to be left behind. Organisation expects to see a steep rise
blaze. Hundreds of thousands of Sunday lunches were left on tables, pets in the number of cancers over the next
people, many of them soldiers, were and livestock abandoned. By 4.20pm 30 years among the local population
drafted in to clean up the site. They had the town was empty. On 3 May, the (including up to 40% of the children)
very little in the way of protective total evacuation zone had to be and the liquidators.
clothing and were only allowed into the extended to a 30km radius. In early
reactor building for 90 seconds at a June another 35,000 people had to be Chernobyl today
time. They were called the ‘liquidators’. moved as more highly radioactive spots In November 2016 the Chernobyl plant
further away were discovered. In all, was covered in steel to make it safer.
The clean-up work continued for two more than 110,000 men, women and 95% of the radioactive material is still
years as the entire reactor building was children were evacuated. This area, within the plant, and storage facilities
sealed in a huge concrete tomb-like officially called the exclusion zone and are also being built for the radioactive
structure known as the Sarcophagus. known locally as the Dead Zone, is still waste. People today suffer ill health,
more than three decades later, empty – with medicines difficult to come by, and
What radioactive elements were except for a few hundred elderly people they are also angry and grieving. Many
released? who have returned to their land. Pripyat feel angry about the disruption to their
Different radioactive elements remain is a ghost town. lives.

25
Question sheet
The Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
Visit: bit.ly/1beSWTR
What happened?
1. What date(s) did the reactor begin to fail?
2. What happened when the reactor exploded?
3. What was released that was so dangerous?

Visit: bit.ly/15CdztC
4. How many people were evacuated?

Visit: bit.ly/i4HCDm
The Liquidators
5. Who were the liquidators?
6. Look at the photos –
Which one stands out to you?
Why?

Visit: bit.ly/1beTPvy
The Ghost Town
7. Look at the 12 pictures of the abandoned town of Pripyat –
Which one stands out to you?
Why?

Visit: bbc.in/1a9dUDA (Note, this page is from 2006)

The Children of Chernobyl
8. Why do Keisha’s family and others host children from Belarus?

26
27
Russia – borders to the The Chernobyl nuclear
East of Ukraine United Kingdom
power station, Ukraine
– to the West Germany – to the West
Russia is about 150km from An explosion in the plant
the power plant and was also The worst affected British areas Belarus – on the North
Germany was affected by happened when there was a
heavily affected. The ground were hill farms in Cumbria, Border with Ukraine
radiation too despite being power surge and there was not
was contaminated as the wind North Wales and South West
1,050km away from the Belarus is a country just 13km enough water to cool down
blew radioactive dust over Scotland. People in these areas
Chernobyl plant. North of the power plant. It was the reactors. The top blew off
areas of the country. People were warned not to drink
heavily affected by the radiation. like a volcano and released lots
here also contracted thyroid rainwater. There were food scares as some
of radiation
cancer and many children are areas received a lot of radiation. Children were particularly
Until 2012, there were sheep
still ill from the effects. It is Also more children were born affected and were 100 times The people sent in to battle the
farms in Wales (2,250km from
estimated that in Belarus, with disabilities and illnesses more likely to develop thyroid flames were called ‘liquidators’.
the plant!) that were specially
Ukraine and Russia alone more and studies have linked this to cancer than before the accident. The radiation made them ill
monitored and some sheep
than 200,000 people have the disaster. and many died. Their children
could not be used for humans
died from the effects of the have also been born with
to eat.
Chernobyl disaster. illnesses.

Scandinavia
Poland – borders to the – to the North The ‘Dead Zone’ – Pripyat and Chernobyl,
West of Ukraine covering Ukraine and Ukraine
It was radiation on clothes of
Portugal Belarus Closest towns to the power
Poland is about 400km away Swedish nuclear power plant
– to the South West from the explosion. However, it workers 1,200km away that first There was a zone of 30km station. Pripyat (approx. 3km
still received quite high levels of alerted the world to the disaster. around the plant that was away) was where the workers
Despite being 3,000km away,
radiation. Many more stillbirths The Swedish plant first thought evacuated and today it is known mainly lived. 40,000 people
areas of Portugal contained
and babies dying shortly after they had experienced a leak, but as the ‘dead zone’. 110,000 were evacuated from the town,
traces of radiation.
birth were recorded after the found no problems. people were evacuated in all. leaving all their things. Even
Spain also received some disaster. Many other countries Even more families left lunches were left on the tables.
radiation. However, these The radiation was carried to
surrounding Ukraine were also voluntarily. It is still too radioactive to live
countries received less than Norway and Finland where
affected. For instance some studies have claimed it affected Vegetables and animals were there safely today, but some
many others in Europe did. studies have shown Romania the reindeer which the Lapp contaminated by radioactive older people have returned.
had an increase in childhood people rely on for food and rain. It is still unsafe to spend Besides them, it is like a
leukaemia. clothes. Fish were also thought much time in the zone today. ‘ghost town’.
to be contaminated.