Highsmith, Carol M. Spray ponds serve as back-up cooling for plant components at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in the town of Tonopah in the Arizona desert, 50 miles west of Phoenix. 2018. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2018703095/.
Students will be prepared to use this resource by considering ethical questions and tradeoffs of different types of energy production. The teacher will use the resource to describe the United States’ use of nuclear energy and to help students consider the drawbacks of what many consider the cleanest kind of energy. Students will be expected to share their reactions to and feelings about the tradeoffs inherent in energy production and will outline their feelings surrounding nuclear energy in a short essay.
Since the development of nuclear fission in the 1930s and the creation of the atomic bomb, nuclear energy has been a powerful and often misunderstood force for clean energy. Due to nuclear disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima, development of nuclear reactors as a source of clean energy has been greatly hindered.
- What function might the spray ponds serve at this facility?
- What may be problematic about the safety features of this facility since it is located in the desert?
- What safety features do you notice about the design of this facility?
ELA Standard
Range of Writing 1. Develop flexibility in writing by routinely engaging in the production of shorter and longer pieces for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences. This could include, among others, summaries, reflections, descriptions, critiques, letters, and poetry, etc.
Social Studies Standard
6-12.USH1.4.1.3. Evaluate issues in which fundamental values and principles are in conflict, such as between liberty and equality, individual interests and the common good, and majority rule and minority protections.
Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
- Writer’s Notebooks: Students will answer some or all of the following questions during their freewriting notebook time:
- What do you think is the safest, most reliable, and most efficient form of energy that we use?
- Do you think it is always the case that the most powerful inventions come with the most dangerous risks?
- Where does the energy to your house come from?
- Students should be given time to share their writing, either with the entire class or with a partner/group.
- Parking Lot: Students should engage in a “parking lot” anticipation to prepare them for their learning.
- The teacher should post five different types of energy production around the room:
- Nuclear
- Coal
- Liquid Natural Gas
- Hydroelectric
- Wind Turbines
- Students are given five sticky notes and on each of them should post one benefit and one drawback of each of these types of energy production.
- Take a moment as a class to review some of the answers for each of these.
- The teacher should post five different types of energy production around the room:
- Power/Nuclear Energy Mini-Lesson: The teacher should now project the resource on a screen for students to see, explaining that Palo Verde has been the largest nuclear reactor in the United States (which delivers large amounts of power to Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California). The teacher should present a brief lesson regarding types of energy production, focusing on nuclear energy.
- Drawing from responses to the parking lot activity, the teacher will briefly explain the tradeoffs to each of the five different types of energy production (for example, hydroelectric is extremely passive and uses gravity to generate electricity but can damage ecosystems and kill wildlife), posing the theme of the lesson: “What drawbacks are we willing to endure for the best benefits?”
- Nuclear Energy: The teacher should now focus on nuclear energy, briefly citing disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima.
- Short Essay: Students will now write a short essay in response to the following prompt: “Humans require energy to survive, whether it is a wood-burning stove to cook food or wind turbines to power cities. Each type of production comes with a cost. Nuclear energy is often cited as being the “cleanest” in the sense that it produces no emissions and often requires only a small amount of land. It is also extremely powerful and can cause major damage if it is not properly contained. Do you think the benefits of nuclear energy outweigh the drawbacks? Explain your reasoning.”
Highsmith, Carol M. Steam piping on one of the turbine decks at the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in the town of Tonopah in the Arizona desert, 50 miles west of Phoenix. 2018. Photograph. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2018703099/.