NUCLEANDO

What is NUCLEANDO?

The ‘Nucleando’ (stylized as NUCLEANDO) initiative provides a suite of scholastic tools and resources intended to help Latin American and Caribbean teachers of natural sciences to synthesize nuclear science concepts and applications into their curricula, and to help introduce primary and secondary school students to the world of nuclear science.

Additionally, Nucleando proposes to train teachers in the use of modern and state-of-the-art tools, allowing them to generate their own, customized teaching material, with the ultimate aim of democratizing nuclear science education and to engage young minds at an early age. Nucleando emerged as an initiative within the framework of the Latin American Network for Education in Nuclear Technology (LANENT), and was disseminated through an IAEA technical cooperation (TC) project, implemented with the support of the Spanish Nuclear Forum.

Interactive Posters and Teacher Files

A central component of Nucleando are the 14 Interactive Posters—which can be used in classrooms, either as a printed poster or in its digital format—which provide an overview of common themes, concepts and historic figures in the field of nuclear science. When scanned by students, embedded QR codes throughout each poster reveal more detailed information, direct students to video content or provide further insight. Additionally, a smartphone application provides access to the full library of interactive posters, as well as to questionnaires and quizzes based on their contents.

The Nucleando interactive posters are accessible here.

A collection of 33 ‘playing cards’ help to complement the interactive posters. Each card includes a short text with illustrations, and addresses a broad range of topics, from the fundamentals of atoms to the modern, everyday applications of nuclear technology. Each playing card furthermore benefits from QR codes, linking curious students to videos and related documents.

The Nucleando playing cards are accessible here.

360º educational virtual visits

In order to expand access to information, as well as to inspiration, virtual tours of operating nuclear facilities, nuclear power plants and other sites of interest across the region have been developed, using 360-degree photos. These virtual tours allow students to explore the facilities and institutions using nuclear technology to improve health, propel scientific research forward and produce low-carbon energy.

Embedded throughout the virtual tours are interactive audio queues which, when engaged, play recorded explanations of the facilities and their components, provided by international experts.

At present, virtual tours of the IAEA’s Vienna headquarters, the Uruca Radiotherapy Centre in San José, Costa Rica, and the Nuclear Research Centre in Montevideo, Uruguay—virtual tours of other facilitates are currently under development.

The 360º virtual tours are accessible here.

Educational Corner

The Nucleando initiative also assembles and provides access to the Spanish Nuclear Forum’s library of educational content and interactive activities, named the ‘Educational Corner.’

The Educational Corner offers a wide variety of resources related to power production, nuclear applications in health and industry, as well as to the history of nuclear science. The Education Corner and its contents can be accessed here.

Nucleando Virtual Repository

The updated NUCLEANDO platform also makes use of ‘eXe-Learning’, a web-based authoring platform designed to help teachers to create and share online teaching materials. Using this platform, educators in the region can now avoid the steep learning curve usually associated with publishing content online and can instead quickly and intuitively design their own web modules.

Once assessed and cleared for publication by IAEA experts, the modules will be listed on LANENT’s Virtual Campus for use by other instructors and schoolteachers in the region.

The ‘Virtual Nucleando Repository’ groups together and organizes all the teacher-made lessons thematically, and can be accessed here.