Reckoning with the wicked problems of nuclear technology: Philosophy, design, and pedagogical method underlying a course on Nuclear Technology, Policy, and Society

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteur principal: Verma, Aditi
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Verma, Aditi
author_facet Verma, Aditi
contents This paper describes the underlying philosophy, design, and implementation of a course on "Nuclear Technology, Policy, and Society" taught in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan. The course explores some of nuclear technology's most pressing challenges or its 'wicked problems'. Through this course students explore the origins of these problems be they social or technical and, they are offered tools, both conceptual and methodological to make sense of these problems, and guided through a semester-long exploration of how scientists engineers can work towards their resolution, and to what degree these problems can be solved through institutional transformation or a transformation in our own practices and norms as a field. The underlying pedagogical philosophy, implementation, and response to the course are described here for other instructors who might wish to create a similar course, or for non-academic nuclear scientists and engineers, who might perhaps, in these pages, find a vocabulary for articulating and reflecting on the nature of these problems as encountered in their praxis.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_11422
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reckoning with the wicked problems of nuclear technology: Philosophy, design, and pedagogical method underlying a course on Nuclear Technology, Policy, and Society
Verma, Aditi
Physics and Society
This paper describes the underlying philosophy, design, and implementation of a course on "Nuclear Technology, Policy, and Society" taught in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences at the University of Michigan. The course explores some of nuclear technology's most pressing challenges or its 'wicked problems'. Through this course students explore the origins of these problems be they social or technical and, they are offered tools, both conceptual and methodological to make sense of these problems, and guided through a semester-long exploration of how scientists engineers can work towards their resolution, and to what degree these problems can be solved through institutional transformation or a transformation in our own practices and norms as a field. The underlying pedagogical philosophy, implementation, and response to the course are described here for other instructors who might wish to create a similar course, or for non-academic nuclear scientists and engineers, who might perhaps, in these pages, find a vocabulary for articulating and reflecting on the nature of these problems as encountered in their praxis.
title Reckoning with the wicked problems of nuclear technology: Philosophy, design, and pedagogical method underlying a course on Nuclear Technology, Policy, and Society
topic Physics and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.11422