You can also order (natural) Uranium ore via the mail or on Amazon, some of which has pretty high disintegration rates and a decently high amount of Radium in it. 80-100k CPS.
Or just walk to a number of known sites in Utah and pick up chunks of ore off the ground.
A real danger IMO with Alpha and Beta emitters is that most Geiger counters aren’t going to pick them up at all - most are only meaningfully sensitive to Gamma.
"…(natural) Uranium ore via the mail or on Amazon, some of which has pretty high disintegration rates and a decently high amount of Radium in it."
I'm in Australia and there's no shortage† of the stuff here. Moreover, mining it has always been politically controversial.
Whilst it wouldn't happen now, when I was at school decades ago we had radioactive sources in the science lab and we did experiments showing how alpha rays could be stopped by paper, beta with tin foil and so on.
I also recall the lab had a round section of metallic uranium a bit bigger than a US silver dollar and about twice as thick, it was handed around the class for all to feel how heavy the element was. It was also a source of radioactivity for our Geiger counter (but not the only one).
To some degree, we have to be pragmatic about access to such materials but I'd be the first to agree that finding the right balance is difficult. Scaring everyone out of their wits about radioactivity is counterproductive (as we've seen in recent decades), similarly overfamiliarity is as equally dangerous.
I'm glad I had that early experience at school together with proper instruction that put its dangers into perspective.
The same went for mercury which we had at school in reasonable quantities. We were taught its dangers and to be very careful with it, especially so its compounds.
In recent times I've met young people who've never actually seen mercury and who are terrified of even the mention of it. Clearly no one ever wants a repeat of the
Minamata tragedy but being scared of elemental mercury to this extent isn't right either.
I've often said our best approach is proper education, that is by providing factually accurate information from early on.
Seems to me in recent years we've not done a particularly good job at doing that.
Or just walk to a number of known sites in Utah and pick up chunks of ore off the ground.
A real danger IMO with Alpha and Beta emitters is that most Geiger counters aren’t going to pick them up at all - most are only meaningfully sensitive to Gamma.