Canadian Nuclear Society Société Nucléaire Canadienne 480 University Avenue, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5G 1V2 Telephone: (416) 977-7620 Fax: (416) 977-8131 E-mail/Courriel: [email protected] CM76CCa Education & Communication Committee Report on STAO Conference Executive Summary: The sponsoring of a CNS Booth at STAO 2006 proved to be a successful initiative for reaching high school science teachers. The STAO Conference draws a small sample of science teachers from across Ontario with the majority attending from the metro Toronto area and environs. The preparation and delivery of selected “science curriculum units” to teachers via workshop sessions would be a significant enhancement, but would require the assistance of experienced teachers to be effective. These units would have enduring value as they could be presented subsequently at professional development day events across Ontario and could be adapted for other provinces. Opportunities to work with Scientists in School to develop units for elementary school would be the most effective means to reach younger students. 1. STAO 2006 The STAO Conference was held November 16-18 at the DoubleTree International Plaza Hotel in Toronto (Dixon Road). Over 200 attendees stopped by the booth based on material picked up, and of these, 154 registered for the draw prizes (1 entry form is missing). A database has been constructed from the registrants’ responses. The CNS booth was staffed by Bryan White and the volunteers listed below: Name Affiliation Conference Days Ginni Cheema Candesco Corporation Thursday Constantin Ontario Power Generation, Saturday Banica Canadian Nuclear Society Tracy Gagne Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd., Thursday, part of Women in Nuclear, Friday, Saturday Power Workers’ Union Evan Houldin Candesco Corporation Friday morning Peter Lang Canadian Nuclear Society Thursday, Friday Bob Walker Ontario Power Generation, Thursday, part of Power Workers’ Union Friday Julie West Candesco Corporation Friday afternoon CM76CCa Thursday (left to right): Tracy Gagne, Bob Walker, Peter Lang, Ginni Cheema CNS Booth Draw Prize Winners Grand Prize: Aware Electronics Geiger system, & a copy of Canada Enters the Nuclear Age Shoba Thomas Lester B. Pearson Secondary School Burlington, ON CNS Sweatshirt Chantal Bertin L’Escale Ecole Secondaire Catholique Rockland, ON Joe Lozon Woburn Collegiate Institute North York, ON William Dunlop Assumption College Brantford, ON Carol Riddle A.N. Myer Secondary School Niagara Falls, ON Cecil Chappell Humberview Secondary School Bolton, ON Lisa Tocco Western Secondary School Amherstburg, ON Page 2 of 19 CM76CCa Canada Enters the Nuclear Age Matt Devereux University of Western Ontario London, ON Chuck Cohen STAO Past President Toronto, ON Don Bieronski Preston High Secondary School Cambridge, ON Alison Cornthwaite Sudbury Secondary School Sudbury, ON Jake Plantinga Hamilton District Christian High Ancaster, ON School Jennifer Nazzarelli Firgrove Public School Toronto, ON The ECC now has a STAO membership for one year as a consequence of having sponsored an exhibit booth. This includes an invitation to submit an article to “Crucible”, the STAO publication. 2. Special Project Cost Preliminary expense information follows: Item Budget Actual Comment (Estimated) STAN (Ottawa, F. Boyd) $150 $150.00 Fred to confirm STAO Booth $1860 $1476.60 STAO Program ad $900 $963.00 Display / Promotional $1000 $1364.44 Vincent perforation? Travel, Hotel, Banquet $890 $1093.31 * Contingency $200 $0 Total $5000 $5047.35 Note: additional promotional items from CNS included mouse pads and copies of CNS Bulletin; AECL provided simulated fuel pellets, key chains; PWU provided more simulated fuel pellets, CNW fridge magnets, CNW paper pads and TradeUP brochures. * - includes personal vehicle mileage and parking expenses for Banica and Lang. 3. CNS Draw Registration Form Data 3.1 Teachers Of the 154 attendees who registered at the booth, 136 were teachers in schools currently teaching science. The distribution of the teachers by type of schools is illustrated in the pie chart below. Pre-Service teachers are students at teachers’ colleges. Page 3 of 19 CM76CCa Note that there were 71,274 elementary teachers and 40,961 secondary teachers in the Ontario public and catholic schools in 2003-04. The teachers represented 110 schools. Note that there were 4,010 elementary and 870 secondary schools in Ontario in 2003-04. 85% of the non-pre-service teachers were from high schools. There are some “senior elementary” or “mid-schools” that include grades 7-9 that were assigned as “elementary” in this data. STAO 2006 CNS Draw registration data Pre-Service Others Private Schools8% 3% 7% Catholic Schools Public Schools 19% 63% Non-Pre-Service Teacher Registrants Elementary 12% Middle School 4% High School 84% Page 4 of 19 CM76CCa 3.2 Registrant Addresses The majority of those registering were from the Greater Toronto Area and environs. Teachers did attend from as far as Amherstburg, Arnprior, Kenora, Moose Factory, Sudbury and Montréal. The graph below illustrates the distribution. First Letter of Postal Code K P - -N J N o -M o r o rt th n h w t e e ré a s a s t l t ( (1 (4 1 0 % % % ) ) L ) -9 0 5 (4 N 1 -S % o u ) th w e s t (2 0 % ) M -T o ro n to (2 4 % ) 3.3 Teachers’ Comments Of those who registered with the booth, 40 wrote brief comments. Their comments are appended to this report. They include 2 requests for more information en français, and 7 requests for guest speakers. 3.4 Overall Impressions • Elementary teachers seemed to be particularly interested in having in-school presentations by others. • There was a definite interest in picking up nuclear industry information including the “plastic uranium pellet”, the CNA “Handbook”, and the AECL posters (made available by the DRSA booth). Page 5 of 19 CM76CCa • The large display at the back of the booth was not very effective due to the limited space available. • Both Visions of Science and Deep River Science Academy had significant responses from teachers and other exhibitors. • The Geiger system demonstration with “NoSalt” ® (KCl – 4.8 kBq of K40) was very well received – everyone wanted to win the system. • Those staffing the booth very much enjoyed the experience and would be willing to do it again. 3.5 Effectiveness The booth at the STAO Conference provided an opportunity to: • Introduce a small sample of science teachers to the existence of the Canadian Nuclear Society and solicit their suggestions for assistance; • Distribute nuclear industry resource material to a subset of science teachers; • “test market” an idea such as introducing the Geiger detector with the “NoSalt” ® K-40 source and smoke detector Am-241 source as examples of natural and “man made” radioactive materials that could be used in the classroom. If the 125 high school + middle school teachers are identified as the target audience, the cost per teacher who registered was approximately $40, plus the cost of the donated material distributed. An alternative approach is to have an exhibit booth and sponsor a “commercial workshop”. In this case, the workshop would present a developed “science curriculum unit” to a number of teachers (typically 30, 40, 60 or 90 depending on room size) at a cost of $250 in addition to the booth rental (necessary to get the workshop). The workshop might be run once on each of two days ($250 each occurrence). With the experience and exposure gained running the workshop(s) at the STAO Conference, it is expected that there would be follow-on opportunities to present the workshop at Professional Development days over a wider area than is represented by the teachers attending the specific conference. This activity could then be repeated subsequently to address other units in the curriculum. Page 6 of 19 CM76CCa 4. Proposed Plans for 2007 The science teachers’ association conference was found to be an effective forum for having an exchange of information with science teachers. Following a discussion with Chuck Cohen, STAO past-president and other teachers, the following are recommended. 1. The new curriculum is becoming available – the proposed new elementary curriculum has been posted and the secondary will follow in early 2007. The CNS ECC will examine the curriculum information and select specific units for proposed development investment. 2. The best return on investment to improve science education in elementary schools would be to work with Scientists in School to develop workshop content, procure equipment, and help train presenters. The new elementary curriculum is not yet “frozen”. It is optional in the fall of 2007 and will be mandatory in 2008. SiS are interested in working with the CNS in principle, but have not yet started to review their program relative to the new curriculum. This development could become a 2007 Special Project. While SiS does not reach all elementary schools in Ontario, they have an operating program that expects to reach 430,000 students in 2006. Note: there is presently an opportunity for “comparison of energy technologies” in the elementary curriculum. The nuclear industry has an opportunity improve the accessibility of available information for the teachers – but expecting them to request it from a website will not be very effective. A better opportunity might be to work through the “Energy Council of Canada” or other group that will not be challenged as having a bias to make kits available to each school. (See the Seeds Foundation below.) 3. The CNS ECC should examine the high school curriculum when it is available and select a topic or “unit” that would be a suitable opportunity for development. Former teachers (volunteers or contracted) would be required to work up the material for this unit. The teacher resource material would be posted on the CNS web site. (Dr. Tom Stiff formerly with YesICan!, now at Laurentian U. Orillia Campus who led the workshop at McMaster in 2004 as an example.) A “commercial workshop” would be proposed for the 2007 STAO Conference to train on the developed material.