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Nuclear - savvy gurus in UK schools |
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Written by David Fishlock
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Monday, 24 April 2006 |
Last year changes were made to the national curriculum for UK secondary
schools that could eventually lead to a radical change in public
attitude to nuclear energy. The subjects of nuclear energy and ionising
radiation, conspicuously neglected by the current science curriculum,
are to become a compulsory part of it.
The revised curriculum was test-launched during 2005, in preparation for its full scale introduction in the school year 2006-7.
The decision by government to embark on these crucial revisions stems from fears, first expressed in the mid-1990s, that the nuclear skills base on which it relied to operate its nuclear stations and submarines safely and reliably was being seriously eroded. The Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) - principal source of public funds for chemistry - had funded no research on the actinide elements, including plutonium, since the early 1980s. Departments of Radiochemistry had all but disappeared and university reactors were being dismantled and not replaced.
In the mid-1990s the state owned British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) woke up to the fact that UK universities were no longer delivering core skills needed in its day-to-day business and - perhaps still more worrisome - in its long term responsibilities for the national legacy of radioactive wastes. The company asked its director of science Dr (now Professor) Richard Clegg, a radio-chemist, to forge collaborative research programmes with chosen universities. These “research alliances” were designed specifically to combat skill shortages in particular areas.
Professor Clegg started with a research alliance with Manchester University on the chemistry of actinides - the radio-elements of which plutonium is the most important - launched in 1999. Over the next five years BNFL provided about £10 million to support some 40 researchers in newly equipped “hot laboratories” working on plutonium and other actinides found in nuclear wastes. This Radio-chemistry Centre has forged close links with the Los Alamos and Argonne national laboratories of the US Department of Energy. Three other research alliances with other universities brought BNFL’s contribution to about £40 million, helping to support some 150 researchers: “a serious long-term strategic investment”, as Clegg has described it.
Other warnings of impending skill shortages came from the UK’s chief inspector of nuclear installations in 2001; and then from a nuclear skills audit conducted by the Department of Trade & Industry, which found that 50,000 new recruits would be needed by the existing nuclear industry over the next 15 years.
In April 2005 the UK government, in setting up the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority to take over responsibilities for the national nuclear legacy, tacitly acknowledged the situation: “It needs to be recognised for what it is - one of the most important and demanding managerial, technical and environmental challenges facing the UK over the next century and one offering major opportunities for those who are involved with it”.
Slowly it dawned on government that the problem started in the schools, where pupils were given almost no formal instruction in the basic sciences of nuclear energy to combat the insidious informal information circulated by non-government organisations (NGOs).
Also impinging on the situation was the government’s growing realisation that its schools science curriculum did not formally require teachers to have students discuss the roles of science and technology in society. This omission had been working against government policy on such issues as genetically modified foods and the triple (MMR) vaccine, which have government support but have met strong opposition from NGOs and some sectors of the public.
In 2003 the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) invited the Nuffield Foundation, the University of York and the Qualifications & Curriculum Authority (QCA) to jointly develop a new 21st century science curriculum for secondary schools, for students aged 14-16. Later that year, with DTI encouragement, a London company specialising in technical education for teachers, Software Production Enterprises Ltd., joined the academics.
SPE specialises in sophisticated teacher training programmes in science, innovation, health and energy and, through a company especially set up for the purpose - Young Foresight (Education and Training) Ltd - had already been managing a £3 million project called Young Foresight. This project extended the national technology innovation programme called Foresight, run by DTI’s Office of Science and Technology, to students at school. Highly successful, Young Foresight is still expanding in the UK, has been adopted in Canada, and is to be further extended overseas to the training of teachers in the US and Denmark.
The Energy Foresight project was modelled on Young Foresight, confirms Peter Waller, project director for both projects. From the start it recognised there were many problems preventing students gaining a balanced understanding of the role of nuclear energy.
“Our research confirmed some deep-rooted obstacles”. He offers five examples:
• Most teachers appear anti-nuclear.
• The government has in the past appeared to be anti-nuclear, although it has now instituted a full review of energy options - including nuclear- to report in summer 2006.
• There’s not enough neutral material in schools - “the Greens have done a good job”.
• Many parents are uncertain about nuclear energy and are ill-informed.
• The omissions in the current curriculum do not help the situation.
The revised curriculum has a new, compulsory core module called Radioactive Materials for all students aged 14-16. It raises such questions as:
• What does radiation mean?
• If radiation can cure disease why is it so dreaded?
• How should electricity be generated?
Energy Foresight contains a set of teaching resources designed to support the new module. Dr Peter Campbell, a scientist with the Nuffield Foundation who helped create the module, has collaborated with Waller and his team to present radiation and related matters in personal and social contexts. An aim from the outset, says Waller, is to engage students in a more exciting approach to science.
Energy Foresight’s teaching aids currently include three BBC TV programmes, entitled Radiation and Health, Radioactive Waste, and Power Production, each programme forming the basis for one lesson. The aim is to extend this with a further three programmes. There is also a portfolio of support material available in hard copy form and via a website.
From the video on Radiation and Health students learn about radioactivity, addressing the aspects of the harm it can do to living cells, how it can be handled safely, and its benefits in nuclear medicine. They are also introduced to the concept of the balance between risks and benefits, and learn how to analyse the data available to them.
In 2005 the company raised £700,000 to fund a pilot programme of teacher training embracing 130 schools in North West England and London. Most of the funding came from the Northwest Regional Development Agency, with support from RWE Nukem, BNFL, the DTI, and the Learning and Skills Council Cumbria. Researchers from the Open University have been evaluating the teaching and have recently reported their findings. “Teachers themselves considered the quality of the materials and the training and support we give them to be excellent” says Waller. “We tried to strike a balance between anti- and pro- nuclear stands, which has helped with teachers who feel negative or ambivalent towards nuclear power”. “Students were engrossed by the programmes. The resources overall had a significant positive impact on students’ views of physics, particularly girls, and of their understanding of the topic ‘Radioactive materials’ extending their understanding of ideas and concepts, awareness of social issues and alternative perspectives on these.”
Energy Foresight’s target is to have over 2100 schools with a teacher trained as its radioactive materials guru by mid-2009 to encourage more young students to consider nuclear-related careers.
Whether this project achieves its full objective depends initially on the OU’s final evaluation of the pilot and the modifications deemed necessary for the full programme launch in schools starting in autumn 2006. But a bigger question hangs over the funding. Energy Foresight is seeking a further £3 million to achieve its full objective over the next couple of years The Department for Education and Skills has already indicated that it is not able to provide further financial support for the project so other sources will have to be found if the essential task of re-enthusing the nation’s children in matters nuclear is to continue.
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Last Updated ( Monday, 24 April 2006 )
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