Crackdown On Students And Information As Genocide Widens
Students are showing what normal human beings do when faced with evidence of unspeakable cruelty on a massive scal
LISA SAVAGE, APR 24, 2024, https://went2thebridge.substack.com/p/crackdown-on-students-and-information?r=3alev&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true [includes extracts and video from social media]
Students at college campuses across the U.S. are rejecting Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and their encampments are spreading rapidly following violent repression by police at Columbia University. In addition to calling the NYPD on their own students, the geniuses in administration locked students out of their dorms and meal plans, and suspended them. Once they were suspended they could be arrested for trespassing — on a campus where their families have paid tens of thousands each year to house, feed, and educate them.
This repression has only caused the resistance at Columbia to grow.
Students don’t get their information about atrocities against the Palestinians from mainstream media that were long since captured by the military-industrial complex. Instead, they get their information from eye witness accounts shared on social media.
Is it any wonder that Congress in its wisdom just enshrined domestic spying as law and ramped up liability for social media companies and everyone who works there for sharing what the government deems “misinformation”?
It is said that truth is the first casualty of war. Since the U.S. has been continuously at war for decades, the ever tightening screws of information control are absolutely key to the WW3 project. World wars start with genocide (WWI was Armenians, WWII was European Jews). Before the 21st century these were conducted secretly, keeping the details from ordinary people until after the fact. Nowadays we watch genocide unfolding in real time, with new mass graves at Gaza’s Nasser Hospital the latest in the atrocity parade.
Students are showing what normal human beings do when faced with evidence of unspeakable cruelty on a massive scale: grieve, and turn the anger of grief into action.
U.S. adds to the $1billion already granted to education for the nuclear industry
U.S. Department of Energy Awards $19.1 Million to Support Students and Faculty Advancing Nuclear Energy Technology
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced more than $19.1 million to support nuclear energy research and development, university nuclear infrastructure, and undergraduate and graduate education. Projects will help expand access to nuclear energy, moving the nation closer to meeting the Biden-Harris Administration’s goal of net-zero emissions by 2050. ……………..
Since 2009, DOE’s Office of Nuclear Energy has awarded almost $1 billion to advance nuclear energy research and support the education and training of future nuclear energy visionaries and leaders. Awards being announced today include: …………………………………………………….. https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/us-department-energy-awards-191-million-support-students-and-faculty-advancing-nuclear
Small Nuclear Reactors – free and comprehensive information from SMRs Education Task Force
The SMRs Education Task Force is a network of groups in Canada concerned and active on the nuclear file. Together we have many decades of experience providing information to Canadians about nuclear issues, including the proposed small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). We are providing this bulletin free of charge to encourage more informed awareness of SMRs and their potential implications for communities across the country.
Missing Links in Textbook History: War
According to the Institute for National Strategic Studies: “The most highly prized attribute of private contractors is that they reduce troop requirements by replacing military personnel. This reduces the military and political resources that must be dedicated to the war.”
By Jim Mamer , ScheerPost, 28 Mar 24
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military- industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
— President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1961)
n the late 1980s I had a student in an American history class who said that the United States won the war in Vietnam. I felt dizzy. Maybe I had misunderstood. So, I asked him to explain. “My father,” he told the class, “said that we had won the war because we won most of the battles and we killed more of them than they killed of us.”
My instinct was to attempt to impose logic on the discussion. American aircraft, I said, dropped millions of tons of bombs on Vietnam – more than twice what the U.S. dropped in all of World War II. That, of course, killed a lot of people, but it did not win the war.
That student was not convinced and I quickly realized that I would not change his mind. Not long after, I discovered that he and his father were not alone.
Ignorance or Amnesia?
The late Gore Vidal famously referred to this country as the “United States of Amnesia.” He had a point. As a society, we don’t seem to learn much from past experiences and even what we think we remember is often blurry.
In a 2003 episode of “Democracy Now!” Vidal reported that George W. Bush had managed to have a number of presidential papers put beyond the reach of historians for a great length of time. Making historical records unavailable, he predicted, will worsen America’s amnesia: “There will be no functioning historical memory … we are creating a lobotomized nation wherein the connections between essential parts of our history are severed from what is taught.”…………………………………………………………..
Glenn Greenwald blames some of the misunderstanding on journalists. He began a recent edition of System Update by talking about how journalists report on war. “One of the most important parts of journalism, when it comes to war, is to scrutinize, and investigate and debunk propaganda that comes from every side in every war.” Unfortunately, he concludes, journalists often fail to scrutinize, investigate and debunk.
I have argued some of the blame should be put on state approved textbooks which often fail, in Vidal’s words, to make the vital connections, due to what I call “missing links.
The Often-Invisible Agenda of Corporate Media
In 2005, Norman Solomon wrote an article titled “The Military-Industrial-Media Complex,” where he describes the connections of the military-industrial complex to corporate media.
“Firms with military ties routinely advertise in news outlets. Often, media magnates and people on the boards of large media-related corporations enjoy close links—financial and social—with the military industry and Washington’s foreign-policy establishment. Sometimes a media-owning corporation is itself a significant weapons merchant.”
Because so much of the media is now tied to corporate sponsors or serves the agenda of one political party most Americans are never exposed to real debate. Highly paid broadcasters may be fearful of offending their corporate paymasters when they report on a war involving the United States, especially when their reports have been given a veneer of credibility from “experts” drawn from the ranks of retired military officers, retired CIA personnel and former FBI officials.
As a result, there is virtually no media coverage of weapons manufacturers and the profits they make. Just imagine the impact it would make if reports from war zones that we are deeply involved with, like Gaza or Ukraine, were followed by listings of the profits made by various weapon-making conglomerates like Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Boeing, General Dynamics or Raytheon?
How much do we know about American Wars?
To understand the gravity of the situation it helps to have a sense of how many American wars have been fought and how many conflicts we are currently involved with. The numbers differ according to the source largely because wars are sometimes grouped under umbrella terms like the Caribbean wars, the Cold War or the War on Terror.
According to Wikipedia, the United States has been involved in 107 wars since its founding and 41 of these were fought against the Indigenous peoples of North America. Most of these wars are ignored by schools, textbooks and the media, but the pressure to become involved in additional conflict is ever-present and comes from a variety of sources.
When Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense for President George Bush Sr., he contracted engineering company Kellogg, Brown & Root (then part of Halliburton) to identify traditional military jobs that could be taken over by private sector contractors. It turned out there were a lot of jobs for the private sector and ever since the use of contractors has grown in positions like conducting intelligence, training local military, handling security and assisting in drone warfare.
At times the number of private contractors has been larger than that of enlisted troops……………………………
According to the Institute for National Strategic Studies: “The most highly prized attribute of private contractors is that they reduce troop requirements by replacing military personnel. This reduces the military and political resources that must be dedicated to the war.”
Public Citizen reports that “Every year, the defense industry donates millions of dollars to the campaigns of members of Congress, creating pressure on the legislative branch to fund specific weapons systems, maintain an extremely high Pentagon budget, and add ever more military spending.”
They also report that the pressure to spend more is constant, even though “nearly 50% of the Pentagon budget” already goes to private contractors. According to the report, in 2022 the weapons/defense industry donated $10.2 million to the 84 members of the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.
Even the language employed to report on war is structured to confuse. Invented phrases resemble Orwell’s Newspeak, from the novel 1984, meant to prevent too much thought. How else to explain the birth of misleading terms like “protective reaction strike” (an attack) “enhanced interrogation techniques” (torture), “extraordinary rendition” (kidnapping), “collateral damage” (extra dead), or “targeted killings” (usually with a lot of collateral damage).
The Art of Promoting Misunderstanding
What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is,
What can you make people believe that you have done?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. High school textbooks all discuss early American wars, but usually without analysis. What follows are examples of how three early wars are discussed in textbooks………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Are we headed toward Forever Wars?
Republicans and Democrats disagree today on many issues, but they are united in their resolve that the United States must remain the world’s greatest military power. This bipartisan commitment to maintaining American supremacy has become a political signature of our times.
— Andrew J. Bacevich, American Imperium 2016
……………………………..describing our history as one damn war after another.
How else to respond to the Wikipedia list of 107 wars involving the United States since 1787. And the wars continue. In his book “The United States of War,” David Vine reports that, “In the nearly two decades since U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. military has fought in at least 22 countries.”
In his analysis of American wars Andrew Bacevich writes that “the constructed image of the past to which most Americans habitually subscribe prevents them from seeing other possibilities.” This “constructed image” is basically one of the United States as largely innocent of aggression, but forced by circumstance to defend itself.
In order to identify the missing links in the textbook treatments of American wars, it is important to look beyond the minutiae of single events and the unique characteristics of each conflict and look for common threads in the motivations towards engaging in war.
We have a government financed and influenced by Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex idea, and a population which seems either uninformed or uninterested.
The combination invites a future of permanent war.
Common threads include the ever-present assertion that the United States is defending itself whenever it goes to war and that includes wars engaged in while assembling a nation that would span the continent, as the song goes, “from sea to shining sea.”
How accurate were American claims of self-defense regarding American participation in the three early wars I reviewed?
…………………………………………………… If Andrew Bacevich is correct in saying we in the U.S. have a bipartisan congressional commitment to maintaining American supremacy, then more wars are inevitable. If we are to escape a future of forever wars, all justifications for war should be questioned and debated before the killing starts. https://scheerpost.com/2024/03/28/missing-links-in-textbook-history-war/
Nuclear and weapons industry propaganda to schools
NRS Dounreay and socio economic partners hosted the second FIRST® LEGO® League Challenge North Highland Tournament in March with local schools taking part.
North Highlands team headed for international robot challenge. NRS
Dounreay and socio-economic partners hosted the second FIRST® LEGO®
League Challenge North Highland Tournament in March with local schools
taking part. Each team participated in 3 short robot games and presented to
a panel of judges where they were judged on their robot design, innovation
project and core values such as team work. They are also judged throughout
the tournament and games on their ‘gracious professionalism’; their
behaviours within their own team and towards other teams.
Nuclear Restoration Services 25th March 2024
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/north-highlands-team-headed-for-international-robot-challenge
Peace Pod: an aural adventure in anti-militarist activism. With teacher resources
Get Your Armies Off Our Bodies is the inaugural series of Peace Pod.
Wage Peace is beyond proud to present our latest creation: a podcast featuring the stories, passions and insights of some of our most treasured collaborators. Tune in, subscribe and immerse yourself in the journeys of artists, activists and academics campaigning for peace on the stolen lands of this continent and further afield.
Peace Pod features some of the foremost academics, journalists and activists for peace on this continent, such as Michelle Fahey, Mujib Abid, Izzy Brown, Ned Hargreaves and Aunty Sue Coleman Haseldine, along with international luminaries such as Anthony Feinstein and Matthew Hoh.
Dr Miriam Torzillo has put together high quality teaching resources for students in years 10-12. Dr Torzillo has included a guide to curriculum placement:
- Curriculum Areas
- General Capabilities
- Australian Cross Curriculum Priorities and
- Key Concepts
The Teachers Resource sits with the Podcast here, in one easily accessible page
There is a huge resurgence in interest in the role of the weapons companies because of the genocide in Palestine. Young people are trying to make sense of militarism and peace. The podcast introduces militarism against First Nations people in both Australia and West Papua and the way STEM is being used by weapons corporations to reproduce militarism in the classroom.
Inside the Youth-Led Fight for a Demilitarized Future
Over the past two months, Raytheon/RTX — which develops and sells weapons systems used by the Israeli Defense Forces — has seen stock prices skyrocket and company executives discuss the rise in violence as a financial opportunity.
According to UMass Dissenters organizers, the company is deeply entrenched at the college through recruitment practices and the Isenberg School of Management, which has a close educational and financial partnership with the weapons manufacturer.
A UMass Dissenters organizer discusses the growing youth-led antiwar movement and how they are organizing against weapons manufacturers and the war in Gaza.
SCHEERPOST, By Alessandra Bergamin / Waging Nonviolence, 17 Dec 23
In January 2020, Dissenters — a grassroots, youth-led antiwar movement — began with the mission to connect violence against Black and brown communities in the U.S. to the systems of oppression that fund, arm and enable global militarism. While born from the legacy of the U.S. antiwar movement, Dissenters takes an intersectional approach that connects global wars with corporate elites, local police, border walls, surveillance and prisons. Operating across the country through campus chapters, training fellowships and a strong social media presence, Dissenters has been organizing for college divestment from weapons manufacturers, ending campus recruitment from military-affiliated companies and disbanding campus police departments.
Since Oct. 7, in the aftermath of the Hamas attack and the subsequent siege of Gaza, Dissenters chapters have doubled down on antiwar organizing, holding local and national rallies, sit-ins, student walkouts and training events both on and offline. One campus chapter — at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst — has organized protests, disruptions to sports games, and a sit-in at the chancellor’s office to pressure its university to cut ties with the weapons manufacturer Raytheon, now known as RTX.
Over the past two months, Raytheon/RTX — which develops and sells weapons systems used by the Israeli Defense Forces — has seen stock prices skyrocket and company executives discuss the rise in violence as a financial opportunity. According to UMass Dissenters organizers, the company is deeply entrenched at the college through recruitment practices and the Isenberg School of Management, which has a close educational and financial partnership with the weapons manufacturer.
I spoke with Bre Joseph, a UMass Amherst senior and organizer with the campus chapter of Dissenters. We discussed organizing college students against weapons manufacturers, the radicalizing impact of activist arrests, and the lessons learned from successes and setbacks.
In relation to the siege on Gaza, what are the main goals or demands of the UMass Dissenters chapter?
Number one is that the school must divest and cut ties with weapons manufacturers like Raytheon, but also Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and so on. Our second demand is that the administration must call for an immediate end to Israel’s siege on Gaza and end U.S. funding. A third demand is that the administration must replace weapons manufacturers with jobs working toward a demilitarized future.
I think that third one acknowledges that — while moving away from Raytheon as a campus partner would technically decrease opportunities afforded to UMass students — the onus is on the campus to replace jobs that increase death and violence with jobs that are sustainable and help the earth. We’ve heard students express this on an app called Yik Yak where you can post anonymously. It’s usually unserious, but every now and then I’ll open it and see people say, “I’m an engineering major, and I’m tired of having Raytheon pushed down my throat as an employment option. I don’t want to build bombs. I don’t want to make money for this company that’s killing people. I want better options.” That’s really been our goal from the beginning — get those jobs out and center a demilitarized future instead of militarizing it further.
How does intersectionality both inform and impact Dissenters’ organizing? ………………………………………………………………..
How has UMass Dissenters organized to inform and mobilize students on the connections between the campus and weapons manufacturers?
In terms of education, we have a document that we’ve made public via our Instagram and emails we’ve sent out to interested students really detailing UMass’s connection to Raytheon — and detailing Raytheon’s connection to the IDF and the war on Palestinians. At our weekly meetings, we’ve also had things like teach-ins for interested students. We’ve also crashed Raytheon information sessions to do this thing we call “being the common sense,” where we ask recruiters: “What exactly would students be building? What exactly is making the company money?” We ask the questions they don’t really want to answer but that they need to to be held accountable…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. more https://scheerpost.com/2023/12/17/inside-the-youth-led-fight-for-a-demilitarized-future/
Estonian universities anticipate high costs of training nuclear experts
ERR ee , Joakim Klementi, 4 Dec 23
The future of nuclear energy in Estonia will be decided next year. Universities in Estonia are ready to train specialists in this field, but this requires new curricula, recruiting expensive lecturers from abroad and years of preparation. Due to Estonia’s small population, the pool of nuclear specialists for Estonia must be trained internationally to ensure impartiality in decision making processes.
If Estonia decides to build its own nuclear power plant, it will probably also have to set up a radiation safety and nuclear security authority, similar to as in other nuclear countries.
While the agency could hire a few dozen professionals before the facility is operational, it should eventually employ 60-80 experts. We can compare ourselves to our northern neighbors.
“We have over 100 workers in the nuclear reactor regulation department and roughly 25 in the nuclear waste department in charge of nuclear safety, so about 130-140 people in total,” Tomi Routamo, deputy director of the Finnish radiation protection center, said.
The first reactor is the most expensive for the country, both financially and in terms of the demand for experts. The question of how many experts the plant needs is much more complicated.
“The number of persons in the preliminary phase is about 50-60, while during construction it reaches a few hundred, 200-300. It is expected to be 400 or more throughout the operational period,” Siim Espenberg, the head of the center for applied social science research at the University of Tartu, said.
Since Estonia is the only nuclear country with a small population, predicting the need for experts is impossible. There are few reactors in the world that are a reasonable size for Estonia. However, building a nuclear power facility in Estonia would require 10 or more classes of nuclear experts in additional to the current ones.
There is also a concern characteristic of small population countries that officials from a regulatory body and nuclear plant managers could be past classmates. The agency must be objective and rigorous. This implies that the expert community cannot be too small. It is also critical that nuclear workers have actual expertise in order to deal with unanticipated scenarios……………………………………………………………………………
“Certainly, people should be brought in from overseas, and in my opinion, some people from Estonia should be trained abroad. This type of curriculum, which can span years, can be used to teach professionals at a specific level, but it is also possible for a small number of specialists, perhaps five or ten, to be trained abroad,” Aune Valk, vice-rector of the University of Tartu, said.
These top researchers are quite expensive, particularly if they are recruited from the western Europe or the Nordic countries.
“We are talking about a wage bill of around €150,000 per year. Also, such a top specialist would be expecting investment funding for the establishment of laboratories, a research group, and the recruitment of PhD students. These are very significant investments,” Hendrik Voll, vice rector of Tallinn University of Technology, said.
The new curricula could take seven to 10 years to produce Estonia’s own nuclear engineers, possibly up to 15 years if they are required to obtain practical experience with an employer. Universities are hesitant to start on such costly and time-consuming projects until Estonia has made a solid decision to build a nuclear power plant.
“We might end up educating highly expensive professionals for western Europe, the Nordic countries, or certain eastern European countries if we don’t develop nuclear energy here,” Voll said.
Universities agree that the future of the nuclear power plant in Estonia will require the creation of a school of nuclear engineers…………………
Voll added that in the energy sector, Estonia needs to address the problem that electricity is two or more times more expensive than in its northern neighbors. But whether the solution is a nuclear power plant, neither scientists nor universities can say. https://news.err.ee/1609184221/estonian-universities-anticipate-high-costs-of-training-nuclear-experts
Over 1,200 ‘Educators for Palestine’ Sign Open Letter Demanding Ceasefire
The letter also called for an end to the Israeli occupation and condemned recent suppression of dissent by universities.
By Chris Walker / Truthout, https://scheerpost.com/2023/11/16/over-1200-educators-for-palestine-sign-open-letter-demanding-ceasefire/
Hundreds of academics from universities and institutions of higher learning (as well as public school K-12 teachers) from across North America have signed on to a joint letter, calling on their governments to demand an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza, where the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has killed more than 11,000 Palestinians since the start of October.
As of Sunday evening, the document has more than 1,200 signatures, available to view here. The signers, calling themselves “Educators for Palestine,” are Palestinian academics and their allies who denounce Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as governments complicit in the genocide, including the United States.
The letter calls for such governments to “stop funding the genocide and instead call for a ceasefire, an end to the blockade of humanitarian aid, and restoration of access to water, electricity, and medicine in Gaza.”
“We demand that all potential war crimes be investigated,” the academic letter-writers state. “We demand an end to Israel’s military occupation and regime of apartheid, and a long-term political solution led by the Palestinian people that is based on justice, equality, and responsibility for one another’s mutual well-being.”
“We believe education can be a powerful place for this work,” Educators for Palestine add.
The letter also expresses deep concern over the ways that students and staff of universities are being silenced by their own institutions. “Forced silence through repression of dissent and retribution by powerful institutions against students, staff, and faculty have been the norm and must be loudly rejected,” the letter states, describing the actions to suppress dissent as “McCarthyian” in nature.
“In this historical moment, we reaffirm our commitments to interrogating the ways in which systems such as racism, ableism, settler colonialism, and imperialism are fundamentally intertwined with one another, both at home and abroad,” the letter adds.
Organizers of the letter spoke to Truthout about why it is critical for academics in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and beyond to speak out against the genocide in Gaza and the widespread suppression of dissent in academia.
“We watched in horror as the attacks on Gaza unfolded and wanted to say unequivocally that we reject this collective punishment of the Palestinian people,” the signatories told Truthout.
Organizers also condemned international governments and mainstream media for downplaying Israel’s killing of Palestinian children while using the killing of Israeli children by Hamas as justification for war crimes. The IDF has killed more than 4,500 children in Gaza since October 7.
“As both Palestinian educators and non-Palestinian educators in solidarity, we were particularly concerned with the framing of only one group of children as innocent and using their innocence as justification for war crimes,” the organizers of the letter said.
The organizers explained two sets of goals: one in the short-term and one for the longer-term.
“Our immediate goal is to speak out and bear witness as educators to the horrors that the Israeli state’s assault on Gaza has unleashed, once again, on Palestinian children and their families — horrors that our politicians are actively supporting, and that the institutions where many of us work (universities and schools) are steadfastly refusing to acknowledge,” they said. “Our long term goal is to build a stronger base for solidarity with Palestinians, understanding how the movement for justice in Palestine is essentially interwoven with the movements for justice for racialized and colonized peoples across the globe.”
The organizers of the letter told Truthout that academia was being used to further apartheid and genocide.
“[The] bombs being dropped on homes and schools and hospitals and bakeries in Gaza are often devised within our STEM classrooms and university departments,” they said, adding that the “words used to distort reality within our media, as well as the forms of truth-telling and poetry that assert Palestinian dignity and self-determination, are birthed in the spaces where our students learn to write.”
UK nuclear lobby brainwashing young students, especially women
Science Fair connecting students to a future in nuclear, UK government 17 Nov 23
Nuclear Waste Services (NWS) and Women in Nuclear (WiN UK) hosted an event for young people to promote and showcase career opportunities in the nuclear industry
Around 150 students attended the first ever Nuclear Connection Science Fair in Oxford, hosted by NWS and Women in Nuclear (WiN UK) on 10 November.
The event was an opportunity for young people to learn more about the career prospects in the nuclear sector, and provided the opportunity to interact with successful professionals working in the industry today.
Nuclear Waste Services is part of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) group with a vision and mission that is vitally important to the UK today and for future generations………………………….
Students, teachers, parents and guardians from four secondary schools (Eden Girls Slough, Greyfriars, Didcot Girls and The Abbey) attended the fair in Oxsrad Sports and Leisure Centre in Headington, open to pupils from Year 9 to Sixth Form.
It was an opportunity for students to engage with presentations and have conversations to discover everything they want and need to know about nuclear science, and about the places it could take their future careers.
The event included interactive games and activities with nuclear professionals, talks by key industry figures and a student poster exhibition and prizegiving. Students participated in a poster competition that was opened ahead of the event, with the winners announced on the day. It also provided the opportunity to arrange work experience placements with significant nuclear industry players.
Louise Honeyman, Event Organiser, Co-leader for WiN UK Central England and Business Manager at NWS, said:…………………………………………………………..
The event was a great success, it was fantastic to see so many young people eagerly engaged and keen to learn about a career in the nuclear industry – and we are keen to attract them!
There are a huge range of careers on offer in the sector, looking for a variety of different skill sets. It’s an exciting, expanding and rewarding industry to work in…………………………………………………………..
NWS has an apprenticeship programme, a variety of work experience opportunities and recruits graduates through the NDA group graduate programme. ….. more https://www.gov.uk/government/news/science-fair-connecting-students-to-a-future-in-nuclear
Nuclear lobby and NASA propagandising to schoolkids
NASA Seeks Students to Imagine Nuclear Powered Space Missions
NASA 8 Nov 23
The third Power to Explore Student Challenge from NASA is underway. The writing challenge invites K-12th grade students in the United States to learn about radioisotope power systems, a type of nuclear battery integral to many of NASA’s far-reaching space missions, and then write an essay about a new powered mission for the agency.
For more than 60 years, radioisotope power systems have helped NASA explore the harshest, darkest, and dustiest parts of our solar system and has enabled many spacecrafts to conduct otherwise impossible missions in total darkness. Ahead of the next total solar eclipse in the United States in April 2024, which is a momentary glimpse without sunlight and brings attention to the challenge of space exploration without solar power, NASA wants students to submit essays about these systems.
Entries should detail where students would go, what they would explore, and how they would use the power of radioisotope power systems to achieve mission success in a dusty, dark, or far away space destination with limited or obstructed access to light. Submissions are due Jan. 26, 2024.
“The Power to Explore Student Challenge is part of NASA’s ongoing efforts to engage students in space exploration and inspire interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics,” said Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “This technology has been a gamechanger in our exploration capabilities and we can’t wait to see what students – our future explorers – dream up; the sky isn’t the limit, it’s just the beginning.”……………………………..
The Power to Explore Student Challenge is funded by the NASA Science Mission Directorate’s Radioisotope Power Systems Program Office and managed and administered by Future Engineers under the direction of the NASA Tournament Lab, a part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate. https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-seeks-students-to-imagine-nuclear-powered-space-missions/ #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclearfree #NoNukes #radioactive
Australian government funds pro nuclear propaganda in schools – (even making it “fun”)
Education project focused on engaging next-generation nuclear science professionals in Australia and Japan.
ANSTO 11th October 2023 by ANSTO Staff
ANSTO has recently concluded up a successful cross-cultural nuclear science education project between Australia and Japan.
In collaboration with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) and the University of Tokyo, the project brought together 200 university students, 180 secondary school students and 40 schoolteachers across the two countries.
Participants learned about the history, cultural perspectives, career opportunities and applications of nuclear science in Australia and Japan in interactive presentations, demonstrations and discussions.
Engaging next-generation nuclear science professionals in Australia and Japan was funded by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s 2022-23 Australia-Japan Foundation grant.
Dr Bridget Murphy, Education Manager (Secondary) at the Discovery Centre, was the ANSTO lead on the project.
“University students from both Australia and Japan were very interested in future career opportunities in nuclear science. They also had a broad range of questions about communicating science to the public effectively, radiation safety, the use of nuclear energy in combating climate change, and international collaboration in nuclear,” Dr Murphy said………….
Teachers from both Australia and Japan valued a cross-cultural perspective on the methods for teaching this subject in the classroom, using videos, hands-on and data-based approaches to instruction in nuclear science.
Professor Takeshi Iimoto of the University of Tokyo emphasised the role of project-based learning and suggested that even humour can make nuclear more understandable for school students.
ANSTO is pleased to continue professional development with teachers in Asia, building on past experience working with teachers internationally through the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)………. https://www.ansto.gov.au/news/education-project-focused-on-engaging-next-generation-nuclear-science-professionals-australia #nuclear #antinuclear #NuclearFree #NoNukes #NuclearPlants #Australia
Military space groups in New Mexico expand recruitment and STEM education for children
STEM Education
AFRL’s STEM Academy provides curriculum and hands-on activities for students in kindergarten through high school including rocket launch competitions and simulated Mars missions.
Space News, Debra Werner, October 3, 2023 #nuclear #antinuclear #nuclear-free #NoNukes
“……….. Air Force Research Laboratory’s Space Vehicles Directorate along with other military space organizations at Kirtland, including the Space Systems Command Innovation and Prototyping Directorate and the Space Rapid Capabilities Office, are funding science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education, expanding internship programs and bolstering local and long-distance recruitment efforts.
Since 2019 when Congress established the U.S. Space Force, demand for military, civilian and contractor space professionals across the country has grown. Demand is particularly acute in New Mexico, a state with about 2.1 million employees……………
Internships and Fellowships
AFRL brings high school, college and postgraduate researchers to Kirtland for summer internships. The goal is to “expose people to some of the things we do, because some of the things we do here are pretty cool,” Erwin said. “They can be offsets for things like not being able to pay people as much money” as private industry.
Science and engineering staff members at AFRL publish research topics online. Students can apply to work on specific topics.
“Those topics run all the way from things that are appropriate for a freshman in high school to advanced research, where we’re writing papers for journals and conferences for a PhD candidate,” Erwin said.
STEM Education
AFRL’s STEM Academy provides curriculum and hands-on activities for students in kindergarten through high school including rocket launch competitions and simulated Mars missions.
To meet growing demand, military space organizations seek to attract workers living in New Mexico and encourage other people to move there.
…….The Space Force, meanwhile, is working with state and local governments and nonprofits like the Space Valley Coalition and NewSpace Nexus on STEM programs that encourage New Mexico students to consider space careers and stay in-state.
The Innovation and Prototyping Acquisition Delta also is strengthening ties with universities.
“We are developing partnerships with universities within New Mexico and regional universities, like the University of Texas, El Paso, to leverage those recruitment pipelines for technical as well as programmatic talent,” Straight said………. https://spacenews.com/military-space-groups-in-new-mexico-expand-recruitment-and-stem/
UK’s nuclear lobby to take over education site?
South Gloucestershire and Stroud College (SGS) has made a move to put
Berkeley Green, its flagship Gloucestershire Science & Technology Park
(GSTP), up for sale. The news of the sale announced today comes in the wake
of a visit to the site by the government’s Great British Nuclear (GBN)
organisation, which is believed to be now likely to earmark Berkeley as a
centre for science and research in the next chapter for the UK’s nuclear
power investment.
GBN has been tasked with finalising six sites in the UK
for the new generation of small-medium nuclear reactors (SMRs). As well as
visiting Berkeley, it has also assessed South Gloucestershire’s nearby
decommissioned nuclear site at Oldbury as a possible location for the
reactors. Sources suggest the most likely scenario is for SMR installation
at Oldbury, with Berkeley’s site, in recognition of the academic investment
there since 2016, becoming a supportive centre for science, research and
training.
Punchline Gloucester 27th Sept 2023
https://www.punchline-gloucester.com/articles/aanews/sgs-berkeley-green-goes-up-for-sale
Australia: the normalisation of nuclear power and militarism in our schools
Solidarity Brakfast (transcript of podcast)
Saturday, 9 September 2023 – 7:30am to 9:00am https://www.3cr.org.au/solidaritybreakfast/episode/palestine-laboratory-ii-militarization-schools-ii-within-these-walls-ii
Annie interviews Sanne de Swart from ACE Nuclear-Free Collective (Friends of the Earth Melbourne) on the normalisation of nuclear power and militarism in our schools.
The issue of normalising nuclear weapons and nuclear power has become a hot topic. STEM competitions financed by weapons companies supported by the Ministry of Defence.
- Friends of the Earth Nuclear Free Collective has an email petition to Environment Ministers to show dissent on this and has other suggestions for actions https://www.melbournefoe.org.au/no_defence_curriculum
Sanne de Swart. Normalisation of nuclear promotion under the guise of STEM education. Nuclear propulsion submarine challenge is directed at primary school students. Very young kids groomed to take part in military preparation. Teachers approached FOE with their concernsVictorian teachers unions are resisting this, and the matter has been taken up by Australian teachers union. AEU federal executive has condemned the programme.Education department guidelines are not to accept sponsorships from tobacco companies. and weapons companies. The STEM hub is working together with Dept of Defence and with BAE weapons manufacturer to promote this nuclear submarine technology.. BAE has been taken to the UN over human rights issues. BAE has pecuniary interest in this promotion.
Vic Education Dept is in breach of their own policy by promoting this actively on their website. Use of financial support from large weapons companies in our schools is against Victorian education Dept policy, probably also the policy in NSW. and SA. STEM education – impression given that STEM has only relevance to fighting machines..
Sanne – But really the STEM hub – we will need the brightest minds for the transition to a greener, more liveable society, need engineering and science and technology. This programme is taking away from that need, and directing education towards militarism and war efforts.It also fails to acknowledge from a nuclear perspective the devastating history around nuclear, that Australia has, starting from the British nuclear bomb tests 70 years ago , through to uranium mining and trying to impose radioactive waste dumps on Aboriginal land, all of which disproportionately affects First Nations people.
The Victorian Education Department is very actively promoting the nuclear submarine project The whole government, with AUKUS deal, is preparing for war, and being quite straightforward about that. Probably the Ed Dept is working with the Defence Dept on the same pathTeachers are concerned that this happening in their classrooms. That it is so explicit. Even BAE Systems is saying they want to create an extraordinary workforce. ADF Careers are talking about the pipeline of recruits that they need. Real concerns from teachers that this will be taught in their classrooms, and that the military agenda will be perpetuated for children – which is irresponsible and unethical, because children under 18 – it is all about positive brand association, they cannot make those decisions, as adults can, they are being groomed from a very young age.
Primary school programmes.
There is a LEGO challenge that is ongoing – also run by weapons companies The weapons companies come in, and promote what they do as something exciting and innovative. There’s a programme called Beacon – it is targeted at years 4 to 6 students. It is funded by BAE Systems – it is less explicit – focussed towards AUKUS, but it’s focussed at lower socioeconomic areas and schools,. That makes it hard for schools to say “No” to them, because those come as well-resourced projects. It is quite insidious in the way that it is targeted at young children, to have that positive brand association with military and weapons companies.I think that this is happening in other countries as well. Teachers in Britainhave been working on this, tooFOE has a few calls for action, for teachers to become aware of this. Also parents are encouraged to take this up , FOE is contacting the government on the issue.There is a lack of alternative programmes for STEM education
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