Session X04: Increasing Nuclear Literacy for the Public and for Professionals

Live

As physicists, we usually teach our research specialties to advanced students with educational backgrounds similar to our own. At the University of Wisconsin La Crosse, physics and health science students including Nuclear Medicine Technology and Radiation Therapy students enroll in an introductory nuclear physics class after only one semester of algebra-based physics. The material includes basic nuclear physics, nuclear decay, the interaction of radiation with matter, detector design, and health physics. This talk will focus on the reasoning behind teaching this course, the challenges and rewards working with this student population, and how to integrate this material into already existing courses.   

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The Science of Nuclear Materials is a graduate level course offered within GW's Elliott School of International Affairs Masters' program. The target audience is students pursuing degrees in nuclear policy or energy studies, security policy studies, or science and technology policy writ large. The assumption is that the students have not had a science class since high-school and consequently, we have a developed a rigorous, yet guided curriculum to teach the basics of nuclear fission, radioactivity, weapons effects, energy production and waste management/disposition. Then goal is to develop a modicum of technical literacy in these basic areas so that students are empowered to engage more fully in their current or future employment aspirations. Meeting only once per week for two hours, as is the norm for policy courses, we have designed a dense offering wherein lecture content is reinforced by hands-on laboratory experiments, the latter of which are typically modified from (for example) a freshman physics course. To date, we have engaged over 100 students with diverse backgrounds and interests, and who have gone on to work at the US Departments of State, Energy and Justice, numerous think tanks, contractors and congressional offices.   

Live

Communicating the importance of science, and sharing exciting new results with the general public is now more important than ever. Because if we don’t, who will? It is critical that each of us, being experts in our fields, share our passion for physics in a language that non-experts can understand. And it is even more critical to explore new approaches to do so, because not everyone learns in the same way. Reaching a diverse audience requires a diverse set of tools and techniques. in this talk I will discuss some of the recent activities developed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) and the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) for communicating nuclear science with general audiences. Specifically, I will focus on efforts to collaborate with groups outside of nuclear physics, such as science museums, dance companies, art venues, public media, and more. In particular the connection with various forms of art allowed us to bring nuclear science to audiences that are not necessarily the traditional science enthusiasts, this way enhancing our reach and diversity. I will also discuss some more intense programs for targeted audiences that have served as strong recruiting tools for the next generation physics students.