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The Radioactive Boy Scout By David Hahn

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Introduction In the "Radioactive Boy Scout" the author tells us about David Hahn, a teenage boy who tries to build a homemade breeder nuclear reactor in 1994, at the age of 17. He was a scout in the Boy Scouts of America, and secretly conducted experiments in a backyard shed at his mother 's house in Clinton Township, Michigan. Even though the radioactivity given off by his reactor never reached a dangerous state, when he was stopped by the police for another reason they found materials in his vehicle that were dangerous. Ten months later, his mother 's property was cleaned up by the Environmental Protection Agency. Key Idea 1 Growing up in suburban Detroit, David Hahn was fascinated by science. He often conducted experiments in his basement and enjoyed making things such as homemade fireworks, brewing moonshine, and even making his own self-tanning lotion. Hahn especially loved chemistry and spent much of his time doing amateur chemistry experiments. The chemical reactions in these experiments sometimes went wrong and resulted in small explosions. We learned about chemical reactions in class this semester. He loved to read “The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments” that his father had given him and tried to collect samples of every element in the periodic table, including the radioactive ones. We learned in class about the elements in the periodic table and how they are identified. Key Idea 2 David joined the Boy Scouts and began pursuing the Boy Scouts of America’s

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