The Office of Nuclear Energy is supporting a collaboration between the American Nuclear Society (ANS) and Discovery Education to develop a nuclear science curriculum for high school students. ANS will work with Discovery Education to provide new lesson plans, career profiles, and a virtual field trip for students in grades 9-12. Curriculum will be developed for elementary schools in 2020-21 to complete the K-12 initiative.

In 2018, Navigating Nuclear made nuclear science curriculum content available nationwide to an estimated 442,000 students in grades 6-8.

Learn more about the program. 

The Harnessed Atom is a middle school science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) curriculum extension that focuses on nuclear science and energy. The curriculum includes essential principles and fundamental concepts of energy science.

In The Harnessed Atom kit, you will find a student edition, a teacher’s guide with lesson plans, standards, instructor notes, interactive games, classroom activities, laboratory experiments, and outside resource suggestions. Teachers, scientists, and experts at universities, professional societies, and national laboratories reviewed and tested the kit as it was developed. 

The U.S. Department of Energy is responsible to keep the public informed about our nation’s energy sources, research, policies, and options. The Harnessed Atom helps meet this goal by providing students with factual information about our nation’s energy options and future.

Curriculum documents/activities are available at the links provided below.

Note: PDF files are accessible using Mac, Windows, Android, and most other operating systems. Interactive games and videos that accompany the teacher’s kit may have separate system requirements.