Nuclear Physics for 3rd Graders? How ANS is Re-shaping K-12 Education with Uchenna Ezibe

Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Danielle Allen: 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 stepped back. I mean, not to get too pie in the sky or eye in the sky, sort of a star 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 Chena Abe, senior Manager for STEM programs at the American Nuclear Society. We're going to explore how a and s is shaping the future with cloud tumor 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 panelists on an executive session. But first I wanted to know how did Uchenna get into nuclear energy? Did he always know he was gonna 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 a 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 where I could 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.

And 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 excel as much in science, but I was doing great in the humanities. So I said, okay, we're gonna switch over to the humanities. I'm gonna do the French thing and the national relations thing. I'm gonna 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 gonna 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 at studied Arabic all through. College. College, and I'd studied in Morocco for a year. So it's crazy how we have very, very similar trajectories. So yeah. 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 seventh and eighth 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.

I loved it and that was it. And I taught science there for about three or four 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 a NS, and you know, it was just basically a connection. Someone said, Hey, you might be interested in this role. And I'd 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 into 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 would be exciting to kind of focus heavily on nuclear science and exciting it has been. So that's the trajectory.

A NS 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 a NS, then moving into the professional world and enjoying a NS as a regular member.

And has seen that throughout the decades. And I think the launch of, of the K 12 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 jazzed 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 in 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 a NS noticed that if we really want to have like a nuclear literate society. We're gonna 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. Uchenna shares how his journey from French teacher to STEM educator shaped his passion for bringing science alive 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 gonna get into today what a NS is building for the K through 12 age range. Like when you're a kid, you know, you go visit the fire station or a 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 nuclear science touches so many aspects of our lives that, like all those roles obviously have huge, huge impact on, on, on our lives. But like nuclear touches everything.

And obviously people talk about energy generation a whole lot, but like biomedical applications, aerospace applications, manufacturing applications, like stuff. 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 putting nuclear professionals in front of students. That's one of the programs that we run, but we have a suite of five programs. The first is Navigating Nuclear, which is our nuclear education curriculum.

It's spans grades three through 12. It's NGSS aligned, NGS. NGSS 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. And learning about nuclear science because you know, we like to provide resources for students directly, but educators are such force multipliers, like an educator, seeing 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 gonna 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 in 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.

Our educator training program consists of both in-person and virtual educator workshops that provide educator with professional development geared towards making them more capable and more comfortable teaching nuclear science. 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 1 0 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 tour a reactor of some sort so they can look at adder reactor, see some cough radiation. Very often we try to make it a research reactor so it's small enough that the educators can.

It can really take it in one glance. It's not some massive, massive building. 'cause some of these reactors are huge, right? So they tour reactor and then they work with our interactives, like our cloud chamber. We'll pull out some Geiger counters. We 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 'cause those are like a deep dive into one concept, wastes, micro reacts, you know, nuclear biomedical applications of nuclear, et cetera. 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 it 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 a NS members, but now any nuclear professional can get trained as an ambassador. We train nuclear professionals to go out into the classroom and conduct lessons, activities, you know, talks, presentations, et cetera, on nuclear science.

So, you know, we do the training. We also do the deploying and 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. I'm trying to keep tracking my mind here. The other one is Pathways to Nuclear. That's a career exploration program. So that's, you know, we have career profiles, we have tech-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 first two questions they're gonna ask is, how much money am I gonna. How long do I have to be in school to get there? So we tried 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. Spend a lot of time focusing in on those career resources. And then the fifth 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 have 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 simulators 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 in 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 a district, so a cohort of schools. And that typically is about a eight to nine session engagement where. 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'll be coming down the pipeline 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 gonna 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 gonna do a larger launch at our annual meeting, which is coming up in mid-June.

And this isn't K 12 specific, but a lot of it falls under our wheelhouse. We just relaunched the a NS mentorship program. We've had mentorship programs in the past. They've been a little bit. Haphazard or stop and start. So we spent a little while revamping it and we are relaunching the mentorship program in a sort of a cohort model.

So we'll have four 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 K 12 stuff. You know, 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 schoolers, really, really been requesting that.

And a near peer mentor is 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 who 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 five to 10 years of their role. But finding someone who's a little bit closer in age, you can kind of understand what that mentee is going through, because they recently were at that same stage in their career. So we're excited for the near peer mentors because you know, a and s has a young members group.

We have student sections at many, many colleges and universities around the country. Making connections with like high schoolers, 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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Now back to the show.

Chen walks us through a S'S five 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've made science more exciting and memorable for you? Next, we'll explore how a NS is making that happen through innovative classroom resources.

Yeah, so the cloud chamber, and that was one also that, that it started a little bit before my time though. We did do a, a pretty significant revamp after I got to A and s, but the cloud chamber, you know, when you're, A lot of these engagements that we're doing, you're gonna go and you're gonna have them for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, maybe 45 minutes.

You know, very often we're coming back or we're doing a long-term program, you know, we're doing visits and tours and all that good stuff. But sometimes the nuclear professional's just gonna 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 gonna 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? Nuclear is 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 chamber on like my 50th use now, right? You can use them over and over four 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 that six. 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 a baking, baking powder or baking soda.

I 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. It's something like you said, that they remember. So yeah, we've, we've been distributing them. We've distributed, I think we must be up to 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. Then a s 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 impact's been wonderful. Like people really enjoy it, observing it, whether you're seven 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 aren't just there to, they're not even interested in nuclear, right? They're there to learn. And I'm gonna take the cloud chamber and I know it's gonna 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.

Chen 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 kinda, uh, you know, the student somewhat surpassing the teacher. We actually see that a lot. You know, students will email 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, and assist them. 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 at A NS, I've seen a tangible increase in student interest in nuclear science. I mean, and the data reflects this. We're having statistics that are showing rising support among all ages, but students are becoming, I think it was four outta five students in a recent.

Poll. There was Wall Street Journal report on this poll where it was like four outta five students were supportive of nuclear energy. So we're seeing that changing tide. 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 here 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. 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 wanna 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 a NS, you know, I, 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.

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? 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, or resources are great, but we wanna 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 a NS. They really crushed the development of this program. And we didn't wanna develop something saying like, here, this is what you need as the average high school who's 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. Panelists on an executive session where they talked about nuclear education. They showcased their program in front of the society on the same stage as the presidents of a NS, who was also part of that panel.

So they really, you know what I mean, a NS 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 A and s as an organization and the American Nuclear Society at large, C as a value, which I am so appreciative of because it'll make my job really hard if they didn't.

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 alpha 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 meeting, we get a a NS member who can come and talk with them. You know, we just had the senior, I believe it was the 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 in support education, 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 NS 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 get 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 had 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 are 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, those things are gonna 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 first place who weren't 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.

Applied to nuclear engineering programs, they probably would have, without the program, they probably would've 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, and 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. UTA 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 gonna be short form tiktoks and video games, and that's okay. Yeah, absolutely. So I'd say a really good first place to start. It's just ans.org/nuclear 'cause that's going to be sort of the landing page for all of our K12 resources. Programming videos, webinars, events, everything is gonna be housed on that page.

So I think a really good first place to visit is ans.org/nuclear as far as requesting a cloud chamber. 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 relaunch that program and have them just have a link up there where you can literally just, I mean beforehand, you just click, I want a cloud chamber.

Put in your address a week or two later. Cloud chamber, show up at your doorstep. Stay tuned. We're still gonna work on that. But if you are an educator or a outreach individual, someone who's conducting outreach. Nuclear in your community and you'd like a cloud chamber. I would say just shoot me an email directly and I can read out my email here and then on a case by case basis, we can try to get those individuals the cloud chamber.

So my email is U-E-Z-I-B-E, that's B as in bravo at ans.org. That's U-E-Z-I-B-E 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, than 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 that a 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 and space, right? Nuclear, and I know I say this a lot, but it's sort of 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, no beer 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 in 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 gotta keep. Keep chugging away. 'cause once you understand the science, it sells itself.

Like once you understand nuclear in its entirety, it's rare that you're not gonna 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 1 0 1 Certification.

I'll do a quick plug there if you like the K 12 education stuff. 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 lesson plans and webinar recordings at 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 Chen, Abe, 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.