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The Disinformation Games

Your safe space for games and challenges related to misinformation and disinformation!

Case study: The Power of the Atom

Atom not so scary? What are the prospects and opportunities for the development of nuclear energy in the world in the face of climate change? Nuclear power plants, as a way of generating electricity, began to rapidly lose their popularity after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. The failure of the power plant reactor in Japan's Fukushima (2011) completed the work and eventually plunged nuclear power. However, the world leaders, as well as the public opinion itself, in countries where nuclear power plants play an important role are divided on this issue. Nuclear power plants raise many concerns. Their action and the threat associated with failures have even become mythical, and around the topic arose a lot of so-called fake news, which do not favor this technology, because they create a climate of fear, threat and social resistance.

The Power of the Atom

Recommended for: secondary schools 16+, university students, adult learners

Available building blocks: 6

Tags: nuclear energy, environment safety, cost of energy, sustainable energy

Here are a few helpful tips and advice from the people on the De Facto team who developed and worked on the case studies:

Difficulty level
All case studies were designed for learners in upper-secondary education, higher education and adult education.

Resources
As each building block of any case study comes with a different mix of resources, the difficulty level can be adjusted by:

  • controlling the mix of resources and taking out more difficult texts (e.g. scientific papers) and replacing them with more easily accessible language in videos or popular blogs;
  • controlling the number of resources to work with in a given training session;
  • allowing learners to search and come up with a selection of resources themselves.

Group size
Feel free to adjust the group size and/or the learning methods to make a case study more relevant to the specific needs of your learners.

Language versions
De Facto’s case studies are a product of multinational cooperation. You will notice that resources vary, sometimes significantly, across the different language versions. Being the common working language of the team, it is the English version of the case studies which is most complete, actual and elaborate. See this for yourself when you are choosing a topic to work on, and compare your own language version with the lead version in English. Feel free to combine resources and methods!

Tools
Check the De Facto’s page dedicated to digital tools which can help an educator to work with the case studies more effectively. Use of ICT tools can make a training session on disinformation more practical and engaging for learners.

Tips for educators

Building block 2. Does the nuclear power plant produce a large amount of waste?

In our world today, man produces a lot of different waste. It is primarily associated with the consumer lifestyle of people, especially those living in the rich, highly developed countries of Europe and North America. For some time, we have been increasingly aware of this and we are trying to take different activities to reduce the amount of waste in our lives, and everything that can be recycled. In the case of nuclear power plants, it turns out that 96% of plant waste can be recyclable. The remaining 4%, which cannot be recycled, are protected in special silos put deep underground. But how can we know for certain whether so much waste from power plants is recycled? And over time, what happens to the waste that is secured deep underground? Is it really safe for the environment and for man?

Suggested resources

1. The Independent about “Green activists need to give nuclear energy a chance if they really want to tackle CO2 emissions
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/climate-crisis-nuclear-power-co2-carbon-fukushima-environment-a9105961.html [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

2. About Russian power plant submarines: This nuclear power plant has been called a ‘floating Chernobyl’,  but is that just a hype? Nuclear reactors have been powering submarines for more than 60 years
https://www.theverge.com/2018/5/2/17313174/floating-nuclear-power-plant-russia-academik-lomonosov-chernobyl-titanic  [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

3. Article about greenhouse gases emission: Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions  [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

4. Article about CO24 in Poland: “Nuclear energy discussed at COP24 as an important clean energy solution”
https://www.world-nuclear.org/focus/climate-change-and-nuclear-energy/nuclear-energy-discussed-at-cop24.aspx [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

5. Paper about disadvantages of nuclear energy: “Various Disadvantages of Nuclear Energy”
https://www.conserve-energy-future.com/disadvantages_nuclearenergy.php [Open from webarchive if link broken/inactive]

Videos

1. Pros and Cons for Risks of Nuclear Power Plants and Radioactive Waste: Safety and Health Concerns

2. Video about the “Reasons Why Nuclear Energy Is Terrible!” – till 3’35

3. Video about nuclear recycling

Advertising

1. Westinghouse Electric Company LLC
https://ans.org/advertising/nn/da/pdfstat/index.php?i=100028-westinghouse_0420.pdf&y=2020-4 

Memes

Learning outcomes

The learning outcomes represent the competences which learners are expected to develop as a result of the training intervention:

1. The learner will be able to outline the different meanings of term "waste" of human activities and compare them.
2. The learner will be able to describe term of green energy and list the sources of green energy.
3. The learner will be able to outline the greenhouse effect and its gases emission.
4. The learner will be able to develop and use critical thinking about proc and cons for risks of nuclear power plants and radioactive waste.
5. The learner will be able to develop the reasons why nuclear energy is terrible or not.

Suggested teaching methods

> Information searching
> Information comparison
> Self-reflection
> Present arguments
> Team-working
> Discussion

Suggested learning activities

> Icebreaker: List types of wastes produced by human activities.

> Internet search for the description of waste of nuclear power plants and present them to the class.

> Discussion what is greenhouse effect and what are the reasons of it. Which human activates produce it? If the human produced energy provokes the greenhouse effect?

> Internet search for different information about recycling and what which human activities products can be recycled.

> Division classroom into 3 groups; 1st group defend positive affects, 2nd group defends negative affects of recycling, 3rd group listens their arguments and select (vote) the winner

> Present video about nuclear recycling (video#3) and discuss with learners about possibilities of nuclear recycling, sum up conclusions. Ask learners which are the most believable and why. Present and explain the motivated cognition.

> Use Eggshell model to present elements of disinformation

> Learners create fake or truthful meme about nuclear power plant and present it to others, who try identify whether it is true or fake/identify disinformation in the meme

> Refer to the Eggshell model to analyze their memes and summarize.

De Facto pillars

Frames and Framing: Discussion if nuclear power plant produces a large amount of hazardous waste or not. Does the nuclear power plant produce more waste than other tyoes of power plants?

Motivated Cognition: Compare which researchers and which politicians say that nuclear power plant produces a large amount of hazardous waste. Who is closer to the true? Who presents the real facts then the not checked information?

Warning

You have selected a topic from the Disinformation Games area. Please be advised that this area hosts, or links to, resources that contain misinformation or disinformation. The presence of such materials is to assist in developing and sustaining skills for navigating and detecting disinformation. To achieve this goal – and with clear intent – none of the materials are explicitly marked as true or not true.