Special articles and reports on timely nonproliferation issues by CNS staff.

Updated: Nov 14, 2012

Virtual Science Challenge for Youth Online Conference

High school students, teachers, and nuclear scientists participating in the US-Russia Virtual Science Challenge for Youth enjoyed its first interactive online conference on November 1, 2012. Participants from more than ten different time zones, representing both the United States and Russia, participated.

The objective of the online conference was to stimulate students' interest in studying science and nuclear nonproliferation, and to enhance cross-cultural understanding between students from Russia and the United States as well as to provide students with an opportunity to interact with leading experts in this field.

Lectures

The conference titled "Risks and Responsibilities of Nuclear Power," included three lectures:

• Your Energy Future: A Nuclear Role?
  by Dr. Richard Wolfson, Benjamin F. Wissler Professor of Physics at Middlebury College
  Dr. Wolfson discussed the current state of energy use and what role nuclear energy could play in the future of energy consumption.
• Nuclear Safety: What are the Risks?
  by Dr. Ferenc Dalnoki-Veress, Scientist-In-Residence, CNS
  Dr. Dalnoki-Veress's lecture started with the basics of nuclear energy, a nuclear power reactor, and discussed several variables of nuclear accidents and how to prevent them from happening.
• Preventing Nuclear & Radiological Terrorism
  by Miles Pomper, Senior Research Associate at CNS and Co-Chair of the Fissile Material Working Group
  Mr. Pomper's lecture, which aimed to raise students' awareness of the real danger of nuclear and radiological terrorism, covered three types of nuclear and radiological terrorism: nuclear explosives, nuclear sabotage, and the "dirty bomb" and how to prevent them from happening. He emphasized the importance of more robust international conventions to prevent nuclear terrorism.

All of the lectures were related to the topic of the project, nuclear spent fuel management. Each lecture was accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation and conference participants had an opportunity to ask questions following each presentation.

Students were actively engaged in the question-and-answer sessions, asking many critical questions. Even though high school students normally do not have the opportunity to study such topics, these students had already started such studies using the online education module developed by CNS experts, and they were well familiar with the lecture topics in the conference.

Enthusiastic Feedback

Students and teachers alike gave enthusiastic feedback about the conference.

One student commented, "I really found this conference to be the most intriguing aspect of this whole program."

A teacher shared, "[M]y students were so engaged asking about highly enriched uranium, and serious nuclear threats from terrorists, and components necessary in nuclear fission. Teaching is crazy fun sometimes!"

US/Russian Collaboration

Virtual Science Challenge student participants were grouped into five teams, each of which consisted of four US students and four Russian students with a teacher and mentor for each country, making the total number of student participants forty.

Members of each team from the US and Russia worked collaboratively to complete their first mini-project which covered two topics: Basic Nuclear Physics and Introduction to Nuclear Energy.

Students also learn how to effectively communicate with each other using online tools such as Skype and Google Hangout. The finished projects will include visual and audio effects using multimedia functions.

Solutions for Spent Nuclear Fuel

The US-Russia Virtual Science Challenge for Youth, which is funded by the US Department of State, provides an online platform for US and Russian high school students to investigate solutions for one of the most pressing issues, the management of the world's more than 240,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel. If not managed properly, this spent fuel could cause a widespread release of radiation or be used in the development of nuclear weapons.

The goals of the program are to develop a science education community of US and Russian teachers and high school students; to help develop and enhance students' scientific knowledge, critical thinking and scientific reasoning abilities, and presentation skills; to promote crosscultural cooperation in the sciences among students and teachers in the United States and Russia; and to guide students in a scientific investigation of real-world solutions for the safe and secure storage and management of nuclear waste and spent nuclear fuel.

At the end of the program, all teams will come together and present their findings and proposed solutions at the Virtual Science Fair.