For anyone out there interested in educating themselves on all things nuclear. I teach this as two seperate chapters for Leaving Cert Physics. I would like to think that by studying the notes on the two chapters plus watching the associated links you would actually be in a position to answer any leaving cert questions on the topic.

You can download the word documents for the two chapters here (they’re chapters 30 and 31) and the links for the associated videos are beside them but I’ll put them here for convenience:
The Atom and Radioactivity
Fission,Fusion and NuclearEnergy

The nice thing (I think) is that the word documents contain every exam question that has ever appeared on that topic (broken into individual short questions) plus the solution to each question.
At least I think that’s cool.

It means not only can you put yourself in a postion to understand what’s happening in Japan at the moment but it should feel nice to know that you can do leaving cert Physics!

After all, it’s not rocket science (is it?)

Apart from that, the following video serves as a reasonably good source of information although it is by no means comprehensive and doesn’t list the potential dangers, which is what most people want to know.

Finally, a useful timeline of events is available from Mr Reid’s blog here

Normally we cover this topic towards the end of sixth year but this is the perfect time to introduce the concepts to fifth years; I wonder how many teachers chose not to alter their lesson plan because that’s just not the order in which it’s meant to be taught?