Category Archives: Teachers

Teacher Development Workshop Schedule

Topic: Nuclear Safety and Security
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) Monterey, CA
December 1-3, 2011

Video Lectures from the Workshop
Lecture PowerPoint Presentations
2011-2012 Participating Schools
CNS Staff, Lecturers, and Consultants

Agenda

Thursday, December 1, 2011

8:30 – 8:45

Welcome Remarks, Dr. William Potter, CNS Director

8:45 – 9:00

Introduction of New CNS Education Program Director, Dr. Avner Cohen

9:00 – 9:15

Overview of the Workshop and 2011-2012 CIF Program

9:15 – 9:45

Introduction of the 2011-2012 Program Curriculum Guidelines, Stephen Sesko, CNS Consultant

9:45 – 10:45

Content Lecture 1: Nuclear Energy Overview, Karen Hogue, CNS Graduate Research Assistant

10:45 – 11:00 Break

11:00 – 12:00

Content Lecture 2: Nuclear Renaissance Overview, Miles Pomper, CNS Senior Research Associate, Washington, DC Office

12:00 – 12:15 Group Photo

12:15 – 1:30  Lunch Break (lunch on own)

1:30 – 2:30

Content Lecture 3: Challenges in Nuclear Safety: Nuclear power plant accidents, Patricia Lewis, CNS Deputy Director, Scientist-in-Residence

2:30 – 3:30

Content lecture 4: Connection between Nuclear Safety/Security and Nuclear Nonproliferation/Disarmament, Patricia Lewis

3:30 – 3:40 Break

3:40 – 4:15

Teacher-led Session: Brainstorming on Designing Learning Activities

Lead teachers: Bob Shayler, Orinda Academy, and Linda Palmer, Presque Isle HS

6:00 Hosted Dinner at Habanero’s Grill & Cantina, 400 Tyler Street, Monterey

Friday, December 2, 2011

9:00 – 9:10 Questions and updates

9:10 – 10:10

Content Lecture 5: Challenges in Nuclear and Radiological Security: Nuclear Terrorism, Miles Pomper

10:10 – 11:10

Content Lecture 6: Nuclear Spent Fuel Management, Dr. Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress. Scientist-in-Residence & Adjunct Professor (Via Skype from Vienna)

11:10-11:20 Break

11:20 – 12:10

Content Lecture 7: Governance, International Management of Nuclear Safety and Security, Miles Pomper

12:10 – 1:30 Lunch Break (lunch on own)

1:30-2:30

Content lecture 8: Regional Challenges 2: East Asia, Stephanie Lieggi, Senior Research Associate, and Stephen Anderle, CNS Graduate Research Assistant, MANPTS Student

2:30 – 3:30

Content lecture 9: Regional Challenges 1: Former Soviet Countries, Margarita Sevcik, CNS Education Program Deputy Director

3:30 – 3:45  Break

3:45-4:30

Exercise and Discussion: How to Solve the Issue of Spent Fuel Management? Group Activities

Saturday, December 3, 2011

9:00 – 10:00

Evaluation of Students Work and Citation, Stephen Sesko and Sue Ann Dobbyn, CIF Consultant

10:00-11:00 Discussion on Students Assignment

11:00-11:15  Break

11:15-12:15  Planning for the Spring Student Conference and Timeline

12:15 – 1:30 Lunch (lunch on own)

1:30 – 2:30

Tools for Online Community Building and Website Presentation (Lisa Sanders Luscombe, Project Manager)

2:30-3:00  Introducing Resources, Discussion

The CIF Teacher Development Workshop is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, and Ford Foundation.

2011-2012 Participating Schools

U.S. Teachers

  • Andrew King, La Puente High School, La Puente, CA
  • Amy Koch, Janesville Academy for International Studies, Janesville, WI
  • Rene Mendoza, Franklin High School, Elk Grove, CA
  • Linda Palmer, Presque Isle High School, Presque Isle, ME
  • Bob Shayler, Orinda Academy, Orinda, CA
  • David Shields, Cushing Academy, Ashburnham, MA
  • George Sugimura, Redwood Christian High School, San Lorenzo, CA
  • James Davidson, Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, CT

Monterey Teachers

  • Maj-Britt Eagle, Monterey High School, Monterey, CA
  • Michael Cook, Monterey High School, Monterey, CA
  • Abby Drivdahl, York School, Monterey, CA
  • Masha B. Serttunc, Santa Catalina School, Monterey, CA

Russian Teachers

  • Liubov Shchekaleva, NCEIC, Novouralsk
  • Larisa Zlokazova, School #125, Snezhinsk
  • Nelli Porseva, Gymnasia #164, Zelenogorsk

Chinese Teacher

  • Lei Qiu, Tsinghua High School, Beijing

Online Participants

  • John Simpson, United World College Maastricht, Maastricht, the Netherlands
  • Valentina Mindoljevic, United World College in Mostar, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Dzenan Hakalovic, United World College in Mostar, Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
  • Peter Carrigan, Amman Baccalaureate School, Amman, Jordan

Video Tutorials on This Year’s Topic

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
  • 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

How to Conduct the CIF Project

Conducting the CIF Project

Interested teachers may begin the program in either semester, depending on the schedule of their school.

The CNS Education Group and experienced CIF teachers will be available to assist new participants. We will attempt to pair new teachers with experienced teachers. These people will help guide you through the following suggestions to implement the CIF program.

Every teacher has a particular style of instructing students. In keeping with the CIF curricular model, the coordinators and experienced CIF teachers suggest a constructivist approach. In this way students soon establish a baseline of what they already know. They also begin to understand what they do not know. Finally, they establish what they want to learn and where they must do research to learn these things.

The CIF staff suggests you and your students begin the course by brainstorming both the Benchmark statements and the objectives. In these sessions you might want to create concept maps to visually display connections and links between and among topics. In this way you and your students will develop the meaning of the issues.

Following this, you may want to divide the work among your students. Maybe you would like to create teams that will investigate different geographical regions. Perhaps certain activities would appeal more to some students than to others. Are there some who would like to do the scientific as opposed to the historical research? Are there students who have a knack for writing essays or reports? Do you have web whizzes who will assemble the Benchmark and final products?

Next, define vocabulary and terms. Try to identify terms that will most likely be seen as acronyms. If you find undefined acronyms, there are acronym dictionaries. Make lists of vocabulary and special terms. Perhaps you will want to create a glossary, maybe even one with illustrative pictures or graphics.

Define the areas where you need to do research and the kinds of research tools that you need to use. For example, you might need almanacs for economic statistics on particular countries. You might need atlases to investigate specific regions. The Web might be a good source for pictures and other graphics to illustrate your product. Some of the activities will require interviews with people in the community. You might even want to check out the local video rental. The school or local library could give you social and cultural background information. Your options are many and varied.

The CIF coordinators strongly recommend that you not get all of your data from the Internet. It has been said, “not everything on the Web is good, and not everything that is good is on the Web.”

Synthesize and analyze your data. One of the requirements for your Benchmark and final products is that you have internal source citations and a reference list or bibliography at the end.

For each Benchmark, the coordinators expect to receive results that demonstrate the students’ knowledge of the vocabulary, concepts, and issues covered by each Benchmark. Decide how you want to present your results. These results could be essays, reports, the script for a TV newscast, a newspaper article, a press release, an op-ed piece, or other written material. You might want to create a multimedia product, maybe in HyperStudio or some other software product. You might want to develop a series of Web pages. Again, your options are many and varied.

Throughout this process also think about the kind of presentation you would like to make at the student conference. In a conference situation your students will have the opportunity to interact with students from other states and other countries. Consider that this venue is quite different from that in which the Benchmark results are displayed. At the student conference there will be much more oral and visual interaction.

We welcome you to CIF and look forward to the work that your students produce. Please take advantage of this website, the threaded discussion on Yahoo, and the CIF staff and teachers.

CIF Teachers Learning about Nuclear Fission

Today at the teacher’s workshop, Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, scientist-in-residence at CNS, discussed nuclear fission and the related nuclear safety issues. We learned that even when a reactor is shut down, which Fukushima power plant operators did when the tsunami hit Japan, fuel remains hot and radioactive for a long period of time.

Ferenc discussed the difference between “criticality incidents” and “non-criticality incidents” at nuclear reactors and examined three case studies: Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima.

Questions for teachers to think about in guiding student projects include:

  1. What are the similarities in response between the accidents?
  2. Given that the political systems were so different, why were there still serious problems in response?
  3. How do we improve risk communication during an accident?
  4. How do we prevent this from happening again?
  5. What is the role of industry? Regulators? Civil society? How do we build trust?