Radioactivity, Grade 11: Stem Road Map for High School

What if you could challenge your 11th graders to figure out the best response to a partial meltdown at a nuclear reactor in fictional Gammatown, USA? With this volume in the STEM Road Map Curriculum Series, you can! Radioactivity outlines a journey that will steer your students toward authentic problem solving while grounding them in integrated STEM disciplines. As are the other volumes in the series, this book is designed to meet the growing need to infuse real-world learning into K–12 classrooms. This interdisciplinary module uses project- and problem-based learning to help students understand the debate over the safety and efficiency of nuclear power for meeting the country’s energy demands. Teams of students will apply what they learn about the science and history of nuclear energy to convey the views of particular stakeholder groups and propose solutions to the crisis. At the end of the module, students will be able to do the following: • Explain how radioactive decay, nuclear fission, and nuclear fusion work.• Model nuclear fission, create computer-generated simulations, and perform mathematical computations. • Calculate the energy yield of an individual nuclear event (decay, fission, and fusion) and use exponential functions to represent chain reactions. • Identify the safety and environmental concerns involved in using nuclear fission in power plants. • Explain the history of nuclear energy use and identify key milestones that have influenced society’s perspectives on it. • Make a presentation about solving the crisis from their stakeholder group’s perspective. The STEM Road Map Curriculum Series is anchored in the Next Generation Science Standards, the Common Core State Standards, and the Framework for 21st Century Learning. In-depth and flexible, Radioactivity can be used as a whole unit or in part to meet the needs of districts, schools, and teachers who are charting a course toward an integrated STEM approach.

Dr. Johnson is a Professor of Science Education, Executive Director of the Artificial Intelligence Academy, and Faculty Research Fellow at NCSU. She has been awarded and managed over 75 million in external funding for research and programming across her career – all focused on making STEM for all students a reality. Dr. Johnson has served as an expert advisor to the Office of Science and Technology Policy and has led research and evaluation projects for NASA and the Department of Defense. Dr. Johnson has led several large-scale STEM initiatives, such as the STEM Road Map Curriculum Project and the Handbook of Research on STEM Education (2020), in which the second edition is in progress. Dr. Johnson currently serves as the elected Chair of the American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) and the Special Interest Group (SIG) for Science Teaching and Learning. She is on the editorial board of the journal Trends in Higher Education and served as the Editor of the School Science and Mathematics research journal for a decade 2011-21.

Dr. Johnson has worked with thousands of teachers across the U.S. through professional development and training programs. She has also worked with over 50 schools leading their STEM School strategic planning process. Dr. Johnson has received many national awards for her research. Across her career she has published over 50 peer reviewed research articles, 33 books, and 9 book chapters, as well as dozens of evaluation reports for associated federal and state-level STEM evaluation projects. She has developed an industry partner network for the AI Academy comprised of over 100 organizations which are engaged in growing access for historically excluded and underserved individuals to high school instruction, adult workforce development, and college/career paths in artificial intelligence/IT.

Dr. Erin Peters-Burton is the Donna R. and David E. Sterling Endowed Professor in Science Education and Director of the Center for Social Equity through Science Education at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, USA. Dr. Peters-Burton’s research agenda is based in social justice and she pursues projects that help students who feel excluded in science classes become more aware of the scientific enterprise and how scientific knowledge is generated. She is interested in the nexus of the nature of science, science teacher pedagogical content knowledge, and educational psychology. She is PI for an NSF-funded research project entitled, Fostering Student Computational Thinking with Self-Regulated Learning, which will develop an electronic notebook that prompts students to think computationally with self-regulated learning strategies while collecting analytics on student learning (SPIN; Science Practices Innovation Notebook). She has been co-PI for two NSF-funded grants, Opportunity Structures for Preparation and Inspiration in STEM (OSPrI) and Developing a Model of STEM-Focused Elementary Schools (eSTEM) that have empirically identified criteria for the design of successful inclusive STEM high schools and elementary schools. In addition, Dr. Peters-Burton is an editor of the STEM Road Map curriculum series published by NSTA Press, which is K-12 curriculum based on 5-week problem-based learning modules that integrate STEM, English language arts, and social studies concepts and practices. Dr. Peters-Burton is an Associate Editor of the journals, School Science and Mathematics and Journal of Science Teacher Education.