Toward a global understanding of nuclear energy and radioactive waste management

Within the past two decades important questions have emerged relative to the increased use of nuclear energy world‐wide and to the need to store high‐level radioactive waste from nuclear energy plants. Because students in today's classrooms will become future decision makers and caretakers of both nuclear power plants and radioactive waste repositories, they will be faced with these questions. This paper considers the value of nuclear energy and radioactive waste management (RWM) as topics for science classrooms.