Have you ever seen radiation? I have, and it's mesmerizing.
While testing a radiation cloud chamber kit from the American
Nuclear Society, I watch tiny streaks zip across the mist,
each one a particle of radiation leaving a visible trail.
It's the kind of experiment that sticks with you, and for many
students, it's their first step into the world of nuclear
science. Today, we're diving into how we
can create those moments of awe. Why shouldn't nuclear education
start as early as a kindergarten?
And like then we even step back. I mean, not to get too pie in
the sky or eye in the sky, sort of a starry eyed, but like
nuclear is like the fabric of our reality.
Like all matter is made of an atom.
Like it really is one of the coolest aspects of science.
My guest today is Uchena Eziebe, senior manager for STEM programs
at the American Nuclear Society. We're going to explore how A&S
is shaping the future with cloud chamber kits, nuclear
ambassadors and a high school program where students are
already building detectors in their garages.
So these students worked with us, developed the program, they
came to our winter conference and actually were analysts on an
executive session. But first I wanted to know, how
did Uchana get into nuclear energy?
Did he always know he was going to be the STEM director for the
American Nuclear Society? Hi, Danielle, and thanks for
having me. It is a dream job.
I absolutely love it. I mean, nuclear is already
incredibly fascinating, and it's one of the coolest.
I feel like, you know, sectors of science already.
And the fact that I pretty much get to prioritize sharing the
world of nuclear with kids is pretty much a dream come true.
So yeah, really enjoy it. It was quite the journey.
So I didn't actually go to school for science education.
I majored in French and international relations.
I wanted to be a diplomat. Went through that whole process
of taking the test and starting to move through the steps of
becoming a diplomat. And as I learned a little bit
more about that role and kind of how you're focusing on maybe a
country or region for a certain part of your career, then
jumping here, then jumping there, I realized I kind of
wanted to sort of have a role, work a dive deep into something
and maybe not be. I loved languages and loved
international relations, but I wanted to be able to really
unpack something throughout my career that at the end of it, I
could say, yeah, I really mastered this thing.
And I really feel like I made an impact in all through kind of
high school and college. I was working in education.
You know, I started as a French tutor and then right after I
graduated college, as I was going through the steps to
become a diplomat, I was a French teacher and I really did
enjoy that. I still had a love for
languages, but I was still kind of floundering looking for what
the thing was. And I'd always loved science.
I really was a STEM kid when I was younger, and science was by
by far by my primary love. But like many students, I
struggled with math once I hit high school.
Like I went from a little bit of a less rigorous school to a kind
of a very, very academically rigorous school in high school.
And my math suffered. And then that math anxiety hit
and I, I started not to XLS much in science, but I was doing
great in the humanities. So I said, OK, we're going to
switch over to the humanities. I'm going to do the French thing
and the national relations thing.
I'm going to be a diplomat. But in my free time watching
documentaries on science, doing Moocs, massive open online
courses on science topics just for fun.
So that was the background. I actually feel like there's
something there, right? Wanting to deal with various
cultures and various individuals and like trying to see yourself
in the other is a really good skill for an educator because
not every student's going to be the same.
You often have to be a diplomat between like knowledge and and
humans, right? You have to be that diplomat of
helping that transition. But yeah, I love how you
mentioned your background. So also Arabic.
I'd studied Arabic all through college, and I'd studied in
Morocco for a year. So it's crazy how we have very,
very similar trajectories. So yeah, I love it.
Loving science but not doing it professionally.
And in the middle of the school year, while I was a French
teacher, the science teacher up and quit, and the kids did not
have a science teacher, right? This was the middle school
science teacher for 7th and 8th grade, and the principal knew
that I had a huge love for science.
I had sub science when the science teacher wasn't there.
So, you know, she begged me to just fill in the gap for the
rest of that school year and I loved it.
And that was it. And I taught science there for
about 3 or 4 more years and I've been in STEM education ever
since. It definitely, you know, I felt
as soon as I made that transition, like this is the
thing that I want to be doing. So after teaching, I went on to
do STEM education at various nonprofits, worked for a little
bit at a STEM education grant making organization after the
nonprofits where I helped support a portfolio of STEM
programs. And while I was there, I learned
about ANS and you know, it was just basically a connection.
Someone said, hey, you might be interested in this role.
And I known a little bit about nuclear, quickly learned a lot
more about nuclear and realized this was a really, really cool
opportunity. So after a few years in the
grant making space, which was great, but again, very broad,
30,000 foot view supporting these national programs that are
really large, not really diving into a topic, I thought it'd be
exciting to kind of focus heavily on nuclear science and
exciting it has been. So that's the trajectory ANS has
been around, I believe since 1954.
It's been around for a very, very long time as a professional
society. So has seen a lot of that
trajectory of college students studying nuclear, maybe being a
student member at ANS, then moving into the professional
world, joining ANS as a regular member and has seen that
throughout the decades. And I think the launch of the of
the K12 resources, which again came, I'm not sure exactly what
year, but it was a few years before I came on board, you
know, came from just noticing that students were, you know,
the students that are coming into the society and the
students that are learning about nuclear.
A lot of these students are the students that are already
getting exposed to nuclear, really excited about nuclear in
high school. Really jazz that really had the
opportunity or an individual in their life to kind of show them
the science of the technology. But for the average student,
that's really not the case. The average student learns a
little bit about nuclear science and their physics or their
chemistry class. They may get a general
understanding of, you know, model of the atom and what
nuclear energy is, but really unpacking the science in a way
that you're graduating high school.
Understanding nuclear energy, its role, understanding nuclear
science and its various applications outside of energy,
all of that is, is something that if you want it as a high
school, you very often have to go and get it yourself.
So I think INS noticed that if we really want to have like a
nuclear literate society, we're going to have to be reaching
students before they actually get to university.
And it's great to have those students who are already really
excited about nuclear before they even get to higher Ed and
are like already on the trajectory of entering the
nuclear industry. But there are a lot of other
students that could be that student if they just had that
first touch point a little bit earlier in their educational
journey. Chenna shares how his journey
from French teacher to STEM educator shaped his passion for
bringing science live in classrooms.
He describes how most students never meet a nuclear
professional before college and why that's a missed opportunity.
So have you ever met a nuclear professional or had hands on
experience with nuclear science before college?
And if not, we're going to get into today what ANS is building
for the K through 12 age range. When you're a kid, you know, you
go visit the fire station or doctor comes to your school or
something like that. You don't get that for nuclear.
I don't know. There are very few people who
can say, oh, yeah, I met a nuclear engineer when I was in
middle school or high school. But, but nuclear science touches
so many aspects of our lives that like all those roles
obviously have huge, huge impact on, on, on our lives.
Like nuclear touches everything. And obviously people talk about
energy generation a whole lot, but like biomedical
applications, aerospace applications, manufacturing
applications, like stuff like radiocarbon dating in the art
world, like all of these things are affected by nuclear science
or these are driven by nuclear science.
And like then we even step back. I mean, not to get too pie in
the sky or eye in the sky, sort of starry eyed, but like nuclear
is like the fabric of our reality.
Like all matter is made of an atom.
Like it really is one of the coolest aspects of science
because you're dealing with the literal building blocks of our
world. So it's a tragedy that you don't
get those touch points earlier on in the average student's
life. So that's one of the things that
we try to do is put in nuclear professionals in front of
students. That's one of the programs that
we run. But we have a suite of five
programs. The 1st is Navigating Nuclear,
which is our nuclear education curriculum.
It's spans grades three through 12.
It's NGSS aligned. NGSSNGSSS is the largest body of
science standards in the United States.
So it's standards aligned grades three through 12.
And it's the goal of that curriculum is to support both
students and educators in in learning about nuclear science.
Because, you know, we like to provide resources for students
directly, but educators are such force multipliers, like an
educator saying how many students a year and then if they
have a 23rd, 20 or 30 year long career, you can do the math.
They're going to reach a lot of individuals.
So that curriculum is kind of the foundation of our
programming. And a lot of the content for our
other programs comes from Navigating Nuclear.
And we developed Navigating Nuclear in partnership with
Discovery Education and the Department of Energy Office of
Nuclear Energy. And it's available for free, as
is all of our other programming at ans.org.
Of course, we have some in person programming that you
actually have to be somewhere to consume, but we we try to
provide as much programming as we can free of charge.
So Navigating Nuclear is kind of the bedrock.
We also have our educator training program and our
educator training program consists of both in person and
virtual educator workshops that's provide educators with
professional development geared towards making them more capable
and more comfortable teaching nuclear science.
And those workshops are a lot of fun.
Often they're like a day long engagement where we have a
series of classes in the morning.
You know, we may do like radiation basics, nuclear
energy, one O 1 and what about the waste?
Those are usually the three classes we do with educators.
Give them lunch and then in the afternoon we tore a reactor of
some sort so they can look at at a reactor, see some shreen
called radiation. Very often we try to make it a
research reactor so it's small enough that the educators can
can really take it in one glance.
It's not some massive, massive building because some of these
reactors are huge, right? So they tore reactor and then
they work with our interactives, like our cloud chamber.
We'll pull out some Geiger counters, might do an isotope
activity or something of that nature.
And then we also have virtual webinars.
Once a month we do a webinar on some nuclear science topic
geared towards educators and those are really fun because
those are like a deep dive into one concept, waste, micro
reactors, you know, nuclear, biomedical applications of
nuclear, etcetera. And all those are like recorded
and kept in the library on ans.org.
So that's a really good way for if a teacher just wants to do a
really quick, I really don't understand nuclear waste and my
kids have been asking about it. They have an hour long
interview, not interview, but an hour long webinar with a nuclear
professional talking about that topic.
And they're also of course, like teacher guides and things like
that that fall underneath the educator training program.
Third program is nuclear ambassadors, and that's what we
were talking about earlier, getting those nuclear
professionals in front of students.
That's where we train. And it used to just be ANS
members, but now any nuclear professional can get trained as
an ambassador. But we train nuclear
professionals to go out into the classroom and conduct lessons,
activities, you know, talks, presentations, etcetera on
nuclear science. So, you know, we do the
training, we also do the deploying, connecting them with
the schools in the districts where they can conduct those
visits. And again, everything that I'm
talking about, I say school and classroom and teacher a lot, but
we really we want to be agnostic, right?
We have those in school settings, but we really also
prioritize reaching students and educators in out of school
settings as well. So summer school after school
and we also have worked with Scouts America many years ago to
develop the Boy Scouts nuclear merit badge and the Girl Scouts
getting to know nuclear patch. So we also facilitate programs
and workshops for those groups as well for those out of school
contexts. So nuclear ambassadors is very
popular. Very often they also are
bringing a cloud chamber, Geiger counter, some physical resource
to be able to showcase as well. So that's three try to keep
track of my mind here. The other one is pathways to
nuclear. That's our career exploration
program. So that's you know, we have
career profiles, we have text based career profiles, video
based career profiles. We have webinars where
individuals are talking about roles in nuclear.
We also have a really cool nuclear brochure, both physical
and virtual, which is portraying the different roles in nuclear
and some of the, you know, how long you might have to go to
school and the salaries and then some of the different buckets
where these roles lie. One thing I learned very early
in teaching students is when you start talking about jobs pretty
much off the bat, the 1st 2 questions they're going to ask,
it's how much money am I going to make and how long do I have
to be in school to get there? So we try to put that front and
center on the brochure. And obviously, as I'm sure you
know, we have a huge workforce gap in nuclear.
A lot of people have been talking about this 375,000 jobs
we need to add by 2050 in order to reach projected capacity.
And whatever the stat is, we need a lot of individuals to
enter the nuclear field. So we spend a lot of time
focusing in on those career resources.
And then the 5th program is the Accelerators program and that
which is a very recent program we just launched in January.
And the accelerators program is kind of our, you know, for those
students who've consumed a lot of our other resources and are
really jazzed up about nuclear and are looking for something a
bit more intensive. That's why we launched
Accelerators program. I mean, you know, some of these
kids are building scintillators and Geiger counters in their
garage, and they're like taking their detectors out and scanning
for uranium or like some of these kids are just miles above
what you'd expect for the average high schooler who's
interested in nuclear. So we wanted something that was
able to reach that kid who has really gone through a lot of the
other resources and has really made a clear indication that
they want to enter this field or at least learn more about this
field than a really strategic sort of way.
So accelerators program, we have two branches of that.
We have local branches which are launched at a school or
district. So cohort of schools.
And that's typically is about a 8:00 to 9:00 session engagement
where, you know, about a third of those will be lessons, about
a third of those will be visits and talks to nuclear
professionals, and about a third of those will be trips to a
nuclear site of note local to that student.
And we have those that are starting to get launched around
the country. We have one in Maryland, we have
one in California. We're working on launching one
in Florida, working on launching one in Tennessee and one in
Texas. And lots of indication of others
that will be coming down the pipeline the next school year.
And then we have the National Accelerators Branch.
And that's for any high schooler in the country who wants to
join, who's interested in nuclear.
That meets once a month. And it has alternating meeting
focuses. So, you know, one meeting will
be internal for the students to work on group projects or
strategize around what the larger accelerators group is
going to focus on in a coming meeting, or generally just chat
about the cool things they've done in nuclear science over the
last month. And the following meeting will
be a talk from a nuclear professional that'll come
specifically just to chat with those students about the
industry. One more program that actually
just launched really yesterday. But you know, we're in the
process of the soft launch right now and we're going to do a
larger launch at our annual meeting, which is coming up in
mid June. And this isn't K12 specific, but
a lot of it falls under our wheelhouse.
We just relaunched the ANS mentorship program.
We've had mentorship programs in the past.
They've been a little bit haphazard of stop and start.
So we spent a little while revamping it and we are
relaunching the mentorship program in the sort of a cohort
model. So we'll have 4 cohorts
throughout the year where individuals can indicate they
want a mentor or a mentee and then we're doing matches to
help, you know, make those connections.
And the reason I mention it here with the K12 stuff is the
obviously a lot of accelerators. That is a nice natural next step
right now. I'd love a mentor to kind of
help strategize my pathway into the nuclear industry.
But also one of the cool things about the program is we have a
specific sector of the program for near peer connections.
And I've been finding that students, especially high
school, has really, really been requesting that.
And a near peer mentor was just, you know, say I'm a high
schooler into nuclear. I would maybe be interested in
talking to someone sort of proximate to my age.
So maybe someone just left college and is now, you know, in
their first couple years working in the nuclear industry.
Or maybe if I'm a college student, I'm looking for a
mentor. I might want someone who's in
the first like 5 to 10 years of their role.
But finding someone who's a little bit closer in age, you
can kind of understand what that meant He is going through
because they recently were at that same stage of their career.
So we're excited for the near peer mentors.
You know, ANS has a young members group.
We have student sections at many, many colleges and
universities around the country and making connections if like
high school is really into nuclear and college and early
career individuals in the nuclear industry who understand
what it's like to be that high schooler.
We're really excited for that sort of aspect of the program.
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get started today. Now back to the show.
Luciena walks us through ANSS 5 cornerstone programs, from the
Navigating Nuclear Curriculum to the Nuclear Ambassador program
and why giving educators the right tools multiplies impact.
When you think back to your school days, what would have
made science more exciting and memorable for you?
Next, we'll explore how A&S is making that happen through
innovative classroom resources. Yeah.
So the cloud chamber and that was one also that that had
started a little bit before my time that we did do a pretty
significant revamp after I got to A&S.
But the cloud chamber, you know, when you're a lot of these
engagements that we're doing, you're going to go, you're going
to have them for 20 minutes, thirty minutes, maybe 45
minutes. You know, very often we're
coming back or we're doing a long term program.
We know we're doing visits and tours and all that good stuff.
But sometimes the nuclear professionals just going to be
in the class for 20 minutes on a career day or part of a science
class and they're out of there. So you want something that can
contain a lot of nuclear knowledge, but it's also just
visually exciting, right? Like if you put something in
front of someone that's really, really interesting while you're
giving them educational information, they're probably
going to be more likely to remember the content because
they remember how exciting the visual thing was.
So that's the idea behind the cloud chamber, right?
It actually contains science that you can observe different
sorts of radioactive decay inside of them.
But it's also just really cool watching these trails shoot
through this chamber, especially when it's something that the
student themselves built. So that was the motivation,
right? Nucleus already really difficult
to visualize. You know, you can take people to
reactors all day, you can show them all these things.
Still really hard to get a visual understanding of the
science. So the cloud chamber was built
to to sort of do that and then also to leave something with
that group, right? Like we do a visit, which is
wonderful and we share that information, but if you leave a
cloud chamber with that class, you're having an impact that
extends beyond your visit. They can hook up.
I've been using the same cloud channel like my 50th use now,
right? You can use them over and over,
4 different classes. You can use them in different
ways. You know, now we put a source in
it. Let's not put a source in it and
see how much background is showing up as trails.
So that was the motivation, something physically engaging
and also something you can leave with that classroom to sort of
extend the learning. Yeah, yeah.
I, I, I love that. I, mine was the baking soda
vinegar volcano. Like, I felt like I must have
been in my first grade. And I remember to this day, like
the moment of pouring in the vinegar, it comes up and you're
just like, I did that thing, like I built this mountain and I
put in the baking, baking powder or baking soda, don't even
remember. I'm in nuclear now, not
chemistry. So whatever you put in there, it
really, really stuck out. And that's the idea with the
cloud chambers is something like you said, that they remember.
So, yeah, we've, we've been distributing them.
We've distributed, I think we must be at like 1600 individual
cloud chambers now. We had support to give them out
for free. So all of those were given out
free of charge. Yeah, believe it or not.
Yeah, we had some support and AMS obviously made a huge
investment, but we just saw the value of one of these chambers
in a classroom. You can reuse this thing over
and over. You got 20 kids a year who are
observing it. The impact is worth it.
You know, that grant has ended, you know, so we're, we're
looking for how we can keep handing these out for free just
to anyone and everyone. And yeah, the, the impacts been
wonderful. Like, people really enjoy it,
observing it, whether you're 7 or 70.
I'm about to go to a town hall today.
I'm flying out to Texas for a town hall with a bunch of adults
who are just there to, they're not even interested in nuclear,
right? They're there to learn and I'm
going to take the cloud chamber and I know it's going to be a
hit. So we've learned how the cloud
chamber allows students to see radiation, sparking curiosity
and anchoring abstract concepts into real life visuals.
Uchena explains the science behind the trails and why it's
such an effective teaching tool. Imagine showing students the
invisible world of radiation in a way they could actually see.
What other experiments do you think could spark the same level
of awe? Up next, we'll see how these
moments of wonder open doors to deeper learning.
Absolutely. So it it's funny you say that
about the teacher being kind of, you know, that student somewhat
surpassing the teacher. We actually see that a lot.
She knows students will e-mail us saying, hey, just finished
the nuclear science unit and I need something else that wasn't
enough. You know, like they'll legit say
that they're like, you know, can I get an interview?
Can I get you'll have additional lessons or something like that.
And then, you know, often in those scenarios, we try to reach
the teacher and, and in a system.
And funnily enough, a lot of teachers are reaching out to us.
Like a lot of teachers realize that a nuclear is sometimes a
bit complex to teach, but you have to teach it.
It's in the standards and B kids have been asking more and more
and more for more nuclear science learning.
Even the two years I've been in ANS, I've seen a tangible
increase in student interest in nuclear science.
I mean, and the data reflects this or having statistics that
are showing rising support among all ages, but students are
becoming, I think it was 4 out of five students in a recent
poll. It was Wall Street Journal
report on this poll where it's like 4 out of five students were
supportive of nuclear energy. So we're seeing that changing
time. But yeah, a lot of educators are
reaching out to us saying I could use some support in
helping my students learn about nuclear.
And yeah, we, we can help in that regard.
We're going to fill that gap. But accelerators, essentially, I
came from the STEM grant making space, right?
So I was looking at a lot of different areas of STEM
education and a lot of these programs that we supported
through our grant making focused on robotics and AI, right?
There's a lot of stuff that the average high schooler can do if
they're interested in robotics, AI, coding, machine learning,
anything of that nature in high school.
And that enrichment at that age is so important because by the
time you get to college, even though obviously you have time
to change your major and have an idea of what you want to study,
very often by the time you get to college, a lot of the work
you might have to do to start yourself on that STEM
trajectory, if you didn't get that hook in high school, you
really have somewhat of a uphill battle.
So it came to ANS, But you know, I saw that.
And if you look at like the cool aspects of science, you've got
like AI, nuclear space, like, I mean, I love science.
All aspects of science are great.
But those three are kind of, if you're the average kid, average
high schooler, if you're into science, it's a high likelihood
one of those three things kind of has got your your attention.
There's so many cool things you can do for AI in high school.
There are a lot of cool things you can do for space in high
school. And even if it's not like a
program, there's games and courses and planetariums, all
these different things that you can do.
And there wasn't really that for nuclear for that student who
wants to extend the learning beyond what they're just doing
in their science class. So that was already like a
problem that existed. And we were thinking, right,
like, is it a video game? Is it a summer camp?
Is it a, you know what it and we're thinking about those other
things too, right? But we were thinking about what
it looks like. And then at that same time, a
group of high schoolers reached out to us and they said, hey,
you know, we've done their curriculum, we've attended your
webinars. We've done all these different
things. We want to start a nuclear
science club. Like we want to continue what
we've been doing. Your resources are great, but we
want to link together and do this in person.
And the timing was perfect, right?
Because we were thinking about something to lodge.
They wanted a new offering. And so we said, yeah, let's
start a nuclear science club. And how about you all be the
inaugural chairs and pilot the development of this new program?
So between like April to November of last year, we worked
with those students. And I was expecting, I'll build
this program and I'll ask the students every couple months for
their opinions and they'll say, oh, that looks good.
Oh, that's boring. Oh, that's great.
And I'll go off and work on it and come back every couple
months. That's what I was expecting
because I know students especially, you know, both of
these students, one was a senior, the other two were
sophomores. But like, I know how little time
the average high schooler has these days.
And if that was not the case, these students worked tooth and
nail. They wanted to come attend our
conferences to even learn more about AMS.
They really crushed the development of this program and
we didn't want to develop something saying like here, this
is what you need as the average high school moves into nuclear.
We wanted to hear from them and give something that actually was
aligned with their interests. So these students worked with
us, developed the program. They came to our winter
conference and actually were analysts on an executive session
where they talked about nuclear education that showcased their
program in front of the society, all on the same stage as the
presidents of ANS, who was also part of that panel.
So they really, you know what I mean?
ANS clearly has the will to support programming like this
and students like that. From the president to the CEO to
all of the colleagues, to the members.
We get so much support around education from our members.
It really is something that both ANS as an organization and the
American Nuclear society at large see as a value which I am
so appreciative of because it will make my job really hard if
they did it. So these students went and
developed the program and they met with us and nuclear
professionals and they really, really crushed it.
So, you know, we're super proud of them.
Actually. They just were also at our
student conference in Albuquerque, and I wasn't able
to attend, but they were sending me back pictures of them going
through the desert with their mini detectors and finding
uranium ore. And yeah, these students are
rock stars. So that's how we developed the
accelerators. The three students who developed
it are the chairs. And I think we're hoping to be
able to have a conversation with those three chairs as well
eventually. I think that's working on seeing
if we can make that happen. But these three chairs, they
developed the program we launched in January.
And like I said, we've been alternating between these
internal meetings where they're really building their program
and working with the other accelerators.
We have about 25 accelerators now to date, so just launched in
January, but it's starting to grow.
So their internal meetings where they're really working with
their fellow accelerators and, you know, scoping out projects.
Like we just got a really cool a foot detector that we sent to
them to work on one project. Another group is thinking of
building one of these desktop fusers.
They're doing really cool stuff. And then the alternate, meaning
we get an ANS member who can come and talk with them.
You know, we just had the senior, I believe it was a
senior computational physicist at Terra Power who was able to
come and meet with them. Oh, yeah.
When I say like members want to chat with kids and support
education and the support is ridiculous.
So he came and was able to chat with them and then we've got
some cool other speakers lined up and we're just going to
continue building. So, you know, if you're a high
schooler and you're listening to this, you can sign up for
accelerators. We got a seat for you.
So this is what happens when your students outpace the
curriculum. You have to make a new
curriculum. That's why the accelerator
program was created, designed for high schoolers who have
exhausted standard resources and want to go even deeper.
These students are presenting at conferences, building detectors,
and shaping their own learning. So if you had access to a
program where you could lead your own research in high
school, what would you have created?
Let's hear how A&S is giving students the tools to innovate
far beyond the classroom. Yeah, you know, it's, I think
time will tell to see how that sort of changes the nature of
the workforce. But I think we're already seeing
some really interesting early indications of that shift,
right. For instance, AM s s largest
growing group, I might get the stats wrong here.
Colleagues, please forgive me if I if I give it wrong, but I know
for sure our largest group are young individuals.
I believe it's 35 and under. That's our largest expanding
demographic within the American nuclear society, and it's by a
significant margin. We're seeing, as you'd said
earlier in the episode, these changing perceptions around
nuclear both among adults and among young people.
So I think we're already seeing a bit of that shifting of the
tides. I think what's important is we
continue to meet the moment. Like we have a lot of resources
that I feel like a really, really strong and very deployed
right. Like we have a lot of stuff
going out to a lot of corners. Some of those things that, you
know, those intensive resources, you know, accelerators programs,
but also mentorship, more specific career resources for
steering those students who are interested into the industry.
You know, things are going to be important because you have the
sharing of the basic information, making people aware
of nuclear just who weren't aware at first, which we're
really good at now. A lot of people are aware of
nuclear and now it's a good problem to have, but we need to
make sure we can help people understand and become aware of
nuclear in the 1st place who worked super interested or aware
of it initially. But also we have really cool
programming for that student who is super into nuclear is ready
to supercharge their their trajectory.
So I think time will tell. But I mean, we're already seeing
like a lot of these accelerators have indicated, not even
indicated, but have a applied to nuclear engineering programs.
They probably would have without the program.
They probably would have without our impact.
But to be able to see for sure, like you are applying, like you
need a recommendation letter, you want to go to a nuclear
engineering program, you're applying to all of them that
that's really encouraging to see.
It seems like Gen. Z has a different view of
nuclear energy, and that's shifting the paradigm.
Driven by climate concerns and hands on programs.
Uchita explains how early exposures can turn curiosities
into careers and advocacy. So what do you think happens
when new generations grow up seeing nuclear not as fear, but
as possibility? And they're going to engage with
nuclear differently as well. Instead of long form lectures,
they're going to be short form Tik Toks and video games.
And that's OK. Yeah, absolutely.
So I'd say a really good first place to start is just
ans.org/nuclear, because that's going to be sort of the landing
page for all of our K12 resources, Programming, videos,
webinars, events, everything is going to be housed on that page.
I think a really good first place to visit isans.org/nuclear
as far as requesting a cloud chamber.
You know, we used to have that link up on our website and you
know, now we're kind of sending them out a bit more
strategically because supply has fallen.
We do anticipate being able to re launch that program and have
them just have a link up there where you can literally just, I
mean beforehand you just click, I want to cloud chamber, put in
your address. A week or two later, cloud
chamber show up at your doorstep.
Stay tuned. We're still going to work on
that. But if you are an educator or a
outreach individual, someone who's conducting outreach in
nuclear in your community and you'd like a cloud chamber, I
would say just shoot me an e-mail directly and I can read
out my e-mail here. And then on a case by case
basis, we can try to get those individuals at cloud chamber.
So my e-mail is uezibethatsbasinbravo@ans.org.
That's UEZIBE at ans.org. And just say, you know, if you'd
like a cloud chamber, I'm an educator.
I am a nuclear professional who does outreach.
Just explain to us your usage of the cloud chamber, like why
you'd want one. And then if we can get you a
free cloud chamber, we certainly will do so.
I love it, man. If I could wave a magic wand,
I'd say two things. I'd say, you know, firstly,
seeing it more prevalent in the classroom, It's part of
standards, like the average physics and chemistry class does
have to touch nuclear at some point.
But like we mentioned, it's sometimes given, you know, maybe
less stage time than it and then it might deserve.
And then educators very often find difficulty in teaching
nuclear. You know, physics and chemistry
have the lowest percentages of educators with a degree in their
field who are teaching in the classroom.
Is it always a one to one better degree in the field equals high
quality teaching? Not always, but there's probably
somewhat of a correlation around comfort with the more difficult
topics if you have a degree in that field.
So having most educators, I think it's about 40% of
chemistry and physics teachers have a degree in their field.
So having most teachers not having a degree in chemistry or
physics, teaching nuclear, we understand when we have that
educator reach out and say, I really am having some struggles
in in teaching this topic to my students, could I get some
support? So just seeing nuclear having a
more significant role in classroom curricula, just seeing
it show up and being taught in a more expansive way, I think that
would be wonderful. And I think we're seeing that
starting to happen. I think I'm seeing that trend,
but more more broadly, I think seeing nuclear.
And we were talking about this earlier with AI in space, right?
Nuclear, and I know I say this a lot, but it's a really, really
cool aspect of science. And I, I feel like even just
seeing it out in the public sphere more in a way that's like
not, you know, we don't have to say like, Hey, nuclear is safe,
don't worry. Like we've proven that, right?
Like we've shown the way we have the systems to do it
effectively. It is one of the most tangible
ways that we can have like a significant impact on the
environment. Like the science is there,
nuclear is cool, nuclear makes logical sense.
So like, where's the cool nuclear video games?
Where's nuclear and cool shows and movies?
Where's the cool? Like all of those things which
you see for other aspects of science.
I would love to see that for nuclear.
And I think that's slowly coming to fruition and we just got to
keep keep chugging away because once you understand the science,
it sells itself. Like once you understand nuclear
in its entirety, it's rare that you're not going to be
supportive of this technology. So thank you.
I definitely do not do it alone. We have a large team.
I'm the only one on the interview, but we've got, you
know, my director of program, Dan Goldberg, who's also working
on the Nuclear One O 1 certification.
I'll do a quick plug there if you like the K12 education
stuff. We got cool education stuff for
adults as well. We got certification courses and
an actual certification that was just released and is very
popular. But we've got a large team of
folks who are supporting this. So it is by far not just me, but
and I, I thank you for having us.
I appreciate it. Thanks for what you're doing for
the industry. A podcast is great and
showcasing these individuals in the industry.
I feel like it's important to get the word out.
So thanks, this was fun. From classrooms to town halls,
the American Nuclear Society is lighting a spark for a nuclear
literate generation. If you are an educator, you can
access free lessonplansandwebinarrecordings@ans.org/nuclear.
High school students can join the National Accelerators
Program, and nuclear professionals can volunteer as
ambassadors to bring science to life in schools across the
country. A big thank you to Agena, eBay,
and the entire team for their work in building these bridges
to the future. And to our listeners, thank you
so much for listening to this episode of Naked Nuclear.
Until next time, stay curious. This podcast was edited by
Resonate Recordings.