This WebQuest is intended to have learners use a methodical approach, analytical thinking, creativity, teamwork, collaboration and internet resources to research, learn and accomplish tasks about nuclear power and nuclear power plants.
What is nuclear energy? Why some substances are radioactive and what does it mean? Are nuclear power plants safe? Probably two of the questions could be answered with pretty high accuracy, but one of them is a continuous and disputable topic.
By the time you accomplish this WebQuest, you would have gained deeper knowledge and understanding about nuclear energy and nuclear power plants. Here are the topics covered:
Nuclear Fission - The mechanism that supplies the energy and produces radioactivity.
The Nuclear Power Plant
Comparison to other energy sources
Nuclear Waste
Pros and Cons
Atomic bombs
The goal of this WebQuest is to help you discover the researcher and scientist in you. You will have to develop and improve the most important skills that determine one, such as a methodical approach to problem-solving, a high level of organization, analytical thinking, abilities to investigate.
The learners should work in groups of 2 to 4 people work in а team and share the information gathered with the other members of the team. Each team should select one of the topics aforesaid and distribute the work among the learners part of the team. Each team should find resources that cover the selected topic, make deep research and eventually prepare a .PPT presentation and give a presentation to the other learners in class.
The information within the presentation should be well-organized, factual, and well-formed. It is important to demonstrate a good level of Internet and technology use.
Step 1: Each of the learners should get acquainted with nuclear fission and nuclear fusion. Which of the two processes is used in nuclear energy production? Which substance is used as nuclear fuel?
The following links could help you find the answers.
Step 2. It's time to find out how all the things you learned in step one are incorporated into the operation of a nuclear power plant. Explore how a power plant works. The given materials will guide you.
Step 3. As a result of the operation of nuclear power plants, highly radioactive nuclear waste is also produced. It must be stored carefully to prevent any possibility of radiation exposure. For this purpose, it is necessary to build special storage facilities, completely isolated from people and the natural environment. Outline the main nuclear waste problems. Is there a solution?
Step 4. What are the threats and fears in regard to utilizing nuclear power? Do research on power plant incidents and nuclear bombs. What are the consequences? Should we give up power plants or not? Search the internet to find out resources and form an opinion. You can start with these topics.
Step 5. Compare nuclear power to other energy sources such as fossil fuel and renewable energy sources. Discuss the pros and cons of each energy resource. According to you, is there an energy resource that should be prioritized in the future?
Step 6. The team should prepare a presentation taking into consideration all steps of the process, mentioned above.
Physics is a fundamental natural science, and for it, energy is equal to work. And we should never stop working toward finding new horizons to live a better and safer life.
On the completion of this WebQuest, the learner will be able to:
Skills:
In addition, learners will:
In this section we will not dive very deep into the underlying educational theories about evaluation and testing: there’s too much out there than we could possibly cover in this small project report.
Instead, we want to concentrate on procedures that enable both students/pupils and their teachers to establish if the learning goals of the Webquest were achieved and, if so, to what extent. We recommend teachers make use of a combined evaluation procedure, that consists of:
For instance:
This kind of assessment seems more subjective than it actually is: in his standard work on testing and evaluation (and much more), simply called Methodology (1974), Prof. A.D. de Groot described how consistent the student’s self-evaluations appeared to be: when asked again after 5 or 10 years, their evaluation would almost be the same. De Groot advised teachers to use the learner report as a start for joint evaluations, striving for consensus between teacher and student/pupil about the learning outcomes and their value for the learner, but also compared with the learning objectives as stated in the curriculum.
The learning achievements are visible in the output produced by the students: it is physical evidence: reports, answers to questions asked in the Webquest, presentations, and performance during presentations (preferably recorded). The teacher completes an evaluation grid stating clearly what the learning outcomes for the student/pupil are. The categories in the grid can be modified by the teacher to cover more precisely the content of a Webquest.
>We advise teachers to use the grid to start a joint evaluation discussion, aiming at consensus or at least understanding between the teacher and the student/pupil about the learning outcomes: were they achieved (as planned in the curriculum and communicated before the Webquest started) and to what extent? To communicate the learning goals clearly before any learning activity starts, is a transparency requirement that is widely acknowledged in the educational community. The history of making learning objectives explicit goes back to the evaluation ‘Bible’ by Bloom, Hastings and Madaus: ‘Handbook on formative and summative evaluation of student learning’ (1971), a standard work that also served as inspiration for the earlier mentioned Prof. De Groot.
The procedure also applies when students/pupils have worked together on a Webquest. The teacher will ask questions about individual contributions: ‘What did you find? What part did you write? How did you find the illustrations? Who made the final presentation?’
All the evidence (of learning efforts and outcomes plus joint evaluations) is preferably stored in the learning portfolio of the student, or in any other suitable storage system (folders with written or printed documents, online collection of files, etcetera ).
Changes in personal points of view and feelings are harder to value and here the consensus between teacher and student/pupil about experiences during the learning process provides essential insights.
The grid below gives an example of how the evaluation of the learning process and achievements can be shaped: what kind of reactions to the Webquest does the teacher expect and how valuable are they? Is the teacher capable to explain the value or score allocated to answers or presentations given by pupils? Does the pupil/student understand the evaluation outcomes, and does he/she agree? If an agreement (consensus is not possible, it is still the teacher who decides how to value the student’s work.
Please note that the text in the grid addresses the pupil/student directly: this is important and it is in fact a prerequisite for using such an evaluation grid: it is specifically meant to enable a discussion of learning results between teacher and student and not to communicate learning achievements of learners to others who had no direct role in the Webquest.
The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
t: +357 2466 40 40
f: +357 2465 00 90
e: scool.it@scool-it.eu
The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
t: +357 2466 40 40
f: +357 2465 00 90
e: scool.it@scool-it.eu
The European Commission’s support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, which reflect the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
t: +357 2466 40 40
f: +357 2465 00 90
e: scool.it@scool-it.eu
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