At the Teacher Training workshop, teachers were introduced to this year’s curriculum benchmarks that the CIF project team developed in consultation with CNS content experts, and received instruction on how to conduct the CIF program with students. CNS experts delivered lectures of various aspects related to nuclear safety and security. The content lectures included:

• An overview of the mechanics of nuclear energy
• A discussion on the increasing interest in nuclear energy, especially in developing countries in Asia and the Middle East
• The intersection between nuclear safety and security, nuclear terrorism
• Challenges in nuclear safety such as past nuclear power plant accidents, including Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima accidents

Participants also discussed:

• How to solve the issue of nuclear spent fuel
• How to control and govern nuclear safety and security issues both domestically and internationally.

The content lectures began with an overview of nuclear energy by Karen Hogue, a student in the Monterey Institute’s graduate program for Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies (NPTS),who has an extensive experience in nuclear physics and teaching nuclear power reactor principles.

Watch The Workshop Intro and Karen Hogue

• Dr. Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, CNS Scientist-in-Residence, gave lectures on nuclear safety and discussed nuclear power reactor’s technical issues and past accidents, as well as how we can prevent accidents from happening based on lessons learned from the past accidents, such as Chernobyl and Fukushima. He also discussed how to manage accumulated nuclear spent fuel. This issue has been one of the most contentious issues in both the countries that already have nuclear energy programs and the countries that are interested in introducing nuclear energy.
  Watch Dr. Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress on Spent Fuel
  Watch Dr. Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress on Nuclear Safety

• Miles Pomper, CNS Senior Research Associate and leading expert in the field of nuclear security, discussed how to prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism, highlighting that the danger of nuclear terrorism is very real, and states must take urgent actions to improve security for nuclear and radiological materials and facilities. The lecture also described the technical barriers to nuclear terrorism and how terrorists might overcome them.
  Watch Miles Pomper on the Nuclear Renaissance
  Watch Miles Pomper on Nuclear Security
  Watch Miles Pomper on Governance

• Dr. Patricia Lewis, CNS Deputy Director and Scientist-in-Residence, focused on connection between nuclear safety and security. She also discussed the intersection between those two issues and nonproliferation and disarmament.
  Watch Dr. Patricia Lewis

• The workshop also covered nuclear safety and security in two regions: Asia and the Former Soviet Union.

• Stephanie Lieggi, CNS Senior Research Associate along with Steven Anderle, NPTS graduate student, discussed nuclear safety and security in East Asia using country case studies including Japan, South Korea, China, and the “nuclear new comers” in Southeast Asia.
  Watch Stephanie Lieggi & Steven Anderle

Margarita Sevcik, Deputy Director of the CNS Education Program, lecture focused on nuclear and radiological security in former Soviet Countries.
Watch Margarita Sevcik