Powering Up Nuclear Skills: a novel card game to support teaching of nuclear skills

By Dr. Sarah E. Lu (primary & corresponding author), Mr. Shaun D. Hemming (co-author), Dr. Jamie M. Purkis (co-author)

Published in Nuclear Future 21.2

DOI: https://doi.org/10.63198/BFYP6347

SUMMARY

• Improving teaching of ‘nuclear’ skills necessary to meet growing sector and retiring workforce
• Can we use games to enhance teaching of nuclear science to 11-18 year olds?
• Yes: “RAD ratings”, tested with and positive feedback from >1000 students in 13 UK schools n Resource freely available to everyone – we want people to use it! – to improve STEM outcomes

LEAD AUTHOR

Dr. Sarah Lu is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Clean Chemistry team within the Nuclear and Radiochemistry group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA, specializing in radioanalytical characterization, microfluidics, and Lab-on-a-chip technologies. She has led Rad Ratings and has engaged over 6,000 students globally, adapting the educational game for U.S. audiences and collaborating with the University of Southampton to develop an interactive website. A graduate of the University of Southampton, UK, in 2023, Dr. Lu also serves as a Visiting Researcher there. She has been recognized as a Nuclear Energy Agency 2024 “Rising Star,” was awarded the Roy G. Post Scholarship in 2023, and named one of the UK’s Top 50 Women in Engineering in 2022.