Nuclear Curriculum Updates
January 29, 2013
One of my favorite things about the NEED Project is the fact that they use real classroom teachers to develop, update, and improve their energy education curricula. The NEED Teacher Advisory Board is regularly asked to weigh in on what is working and how it can be improved based on their experience using the activities in the classroom with their students. I just had the pleasure of helping with such an update of the Intermediate Grade Level Energy from Uranium and the Secondary Grade Level Exploring Nuclear curricula. The entire team at the NEED Project works hard to keep the data and information up-to-date in the curricula. With the recent tsunami in Japan, which caused a nuclear accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, it was definitely necessary to update the nuclear curricula to provide details about what happened during this event. Given that this is something students are certain to ask about, it is important that the current curricula reflects what we now know about this accident. Beyond the updates to the background information, you will also notice changes to some of the activities that reflect improvements based on classroom use and also on grade level appropriateness. Check out these updated pieces of curricula (and and thanks for continuing to work toward our goal of creating an energy literate citizenry!
Energy from Uranium (Intermediate)
Exploring Nuclear Energy (Secondary)
Guest blog by DaNel Hogan, Albert Einstein Distinguished Educator Fellow