OUR PROJECT
Why we did this
WHY WE CHOSE NUCLEAR
At the very start of the year when we still weren’t very sure about what to pick as a main topic for our project, we looked at nuclear energy as a possibility, not really because of its environmental potential (we thought of nuclear as being a technology of the past) but because it would be a technical challenge since the physics and the engineering principles behind nuclear technologies are quite complex. As we started our research we knew nothing about Thorium or the history of nuclear reactors and we planned on heading towards something that had very little to do with what we ended up doing.
THE CLT SUBJECT
As high school students about to go on to university we decided to take on a new challenge this year signing up for a somewhat unconventional subject that, unlike regular traditional high school subjects, aims to bring out the creative side of students by allowing them to make projects and present to large audiences. These projects had to be built around physics-related,chemistry-related or biology-related topics and had to meet certain criteria of scientific rigor and accuracy while still allowing large amounts of freedom to us, the students.
The final aim of the subject as whole and of our projects individually was always to show our ideas to the outside world which is why we built this website.
THE PROCESS
Here we will document the process that lead us here
1st term
6/10/2020
We have begun to distribute and assign chapters to each member of the group. The weight of the chapters as well as the demand for more technical knowledge were both well taken into account in this process. Comfort with the English language will also be considered in future situations since a lot of the material researched is and will be inevitably in English.
13/10/2020
Having done quite a fair bit of research, we are now considering a slightly different approach concerning the way information is going to be displayed and organised, especially in the oral presentation. Initially we were leaning towards a more analytical type of treatment towards collected data, but now, the full scale of topic we have chosen has become apparent to us, going far beyond technical aspects. We now consider nuclear energy, and especially some of it’s subtopics, to be absolutely essential material even for those who lack interest in physics or chemistry, since it’s potential applications could very well impact the future(both distant and near) of the human race.
20/10/2020
We have directed our attention towards the potential lack of interactiveness a theoretical project, like ours, can have. As concerns the oral presentation we think it would be wise to incorporate some questions, especially during the physics and chemistry chapters, to keep people interested. This can be complemented with the use of already available tools like the PHET website. The written part of the project has to be designed carefully and should include a fair few images, not just because images tend to keep people interested but also because some more robust sub-topics can be made easier by visual compliments.
27/10/2020
We have started drafting what will later become the main scientific document of our project according to the rules posted on Teams. This document will be the most rigorous part of our project and it shall go into more detail than the presentation since time constraints will not allow us to cover everything we want. We will recommend this document to all those who show interest in nuclear reactors and energy, at the end of our presentation, and want to go beyond. The document will be annexed in the section of our Portfolios named “Project”.
13/11/2020
When it comes to interaction of the audience, we think it might be necessary to ask a few questions throughout the presentation, and, instead of simply turning back if nobody answers, we should force at least one person per question to give us an answer. This might come of as aggressive but it is necessary, especially in the early portion of the presentation.
17/11/2020
We have finished editing every video we want to use and the presentation is ready
THE PROCESS
2nd term
17/02/2021
After having a meeting with teacher Adelina, we have decided we will keep working with nuclear energy until the end of the year. The topic of Nuclear Waste, which we hadn’t given much thought to previously, now seems like functional theoretical core subtopic for this term’s work (along with the Thorium, which we have already explored to quite an extent in our paper but not in our presentation). We won’t be making a physical object but our project won’t be fully theoretical either. Like some other groups with the same problem we have with nuclear energy, we are aiming to make a kind of Information Campaign, regarding the nuclear industry, relying on first collecting information about our audience through an inquiry and second, with that information in mind, creating a Website and a video that can both help us inform and change public opinion. To spread these tools we shall use social media pages. We believe that with this we have struck a balance between theory and pragmatism. We can’t neglect factual and scientifically accurate information but we also have to make use of our communication skills as well as possible.
23/02/2021
We have already started doing research on the topic of Nuclear Waste, which is the only one of the two theory based topics we haven’t heavily researched already. We believe we should be more aggressive with this term’s presentation. Especially with the idea that fossil fuels have to be replaced fast and that the only other energy source capable of generating a similar output globally is nuclear energy. We were a bit misleading last term, focusing too much on renewables, making them out to be the problem, which was unfortunate because all we wanted to really do was to show that renewables alone simply can’t do enough and they can’t do it quickly enough.
10/03/2021
We have started making the Website using Wix. Wix is quite a functional tool. It guides us through many possible designs not forcing us to learn the very basics of graphic design and without sacrificing the visual appeal. It also allows us to use videos but we have had trouble using the ones we want so in all likelihood we will just be using images. This might make the website a little less dynamic than expected but we think we can deliver the essential message in na impactful way without videos.
16/03/2021
We have finished the website. It came out better than we expected, we think it does what it’s supposed to do. We don’t oversaturate people with information, instead we keep the essentials and try and get as much impact as possible through images and impactful phrases. We still need to change a few things after the presentation, but only minor issues with very little significance.
THE PROCESS
3rd term
9/04/2021
Today was the first day of the final term. We thought about possible new approaches to the topic of nuclear energy since we have already made a website and an inquiry. Practical projects are mostly out of the question by now. We intend to refine and polish what we have done up until this point and want to keep walking the path we have been walking since the 2nd term. We want to keep working on our website to make it more appealing.
28/04/2021
Our final presentation is now less than a month away so we have started thinking about how we are going to manage our time and about wether or not we actually need a PowerPoint this time around. We also have notably less time than in the previous two terms(when we already struggled with time constraints) so we will have to focus our efforts on strict and rigid time management and take out anything that isn’t absolutely essential
14/05/2021
We want the video to be a sort of well conceived impactful and appealing summary of the ideas we have been exploring since the start of the year. We want it to contain parts of our scientific research but more than anything we want it to convince people of the benefits of having nuclear reactors in countries that heavily rely on fossil fuels and we want it to show very clearly that the risks of having said reactors close by is very close to 0 in the modern day.
26/05/2021
Even though the most significant part of our work as already been finished we still have a lot to do over the next 3 weeks. Changing the format of the poster from horizontal to vertical is going to require a fair bit of time and effort since I used keynote to make it and the design could potentially be very affected by such a drastic format change. The website itself still needs to to be restructured in some ways and a whole new section needs to be added so we have somewhere to put all the content we produced throughout the entirety of the year.
9/06/2021
We have now created the final section of the website. We have already uploaded Macedo’s video, the links to the images we used in the website, the scientific document we wrote in the first term, the videos of the presentations and the poster. We still need to add in our thoughts over the course of the year and the email we got back from IST.
OUR SCIENTIFIC WORK
Over the course of 4 months we wrote a 55 page scientific document explaining in detail the physics and maths behind nuclear reactors from the basics all the way up to more complicated and advanced concepts while also focusing heavily on new upcoming technologies like nuclear fusion and Thorium-powered reactors. This is above all a scientific document and all opinion based sections are clearly marked as being opinion based
In the last phase of our project we made a 6 minute video that was meant to encapsulate our ideas and present them in an impactful and appealing way
OUR PRESENTATIONS
Over the course of the entire year we did three separate presentations where we exposed our ideas using support tools like videos, posters and PowerPoints. We were often asked questions and we did our best to convey our ideas and the scientific concepts behind our work properly in a way that was intelligible for most people. Below we added the links to all three of our presentations. The second of these was unfortunately done online because of the COVID lockdowns.
OUR POSTER
We were asked to make a poster to complement our project and we chose to dedicate it to the topic of Thorium since in our opinion it is the on the most important parts of our research work and people know very little about the element and its many applications.
THE TEAM
Know a little more about us
JOÃO CARRANCA
Group member
Hi, my name is João, I want to pursue electrotechnical engineering. My favourite hobbies are watching football games(the national team in particular) and painting. I have always liked maths and physics and that is why I took an interest in nuclear energy. I also watch anime. I chose CLT in my last year of high school because I wanted to keep expanding my skill set and I wanted a new challenge.
MARTIM FONTE
Group member
Hello! I'm Martim, a 19 year old from Sintra, Portugal in his last year oh high school, who recently decided to embark on a new subject called CLT, a subject created by my English teacher Adelina Ribeiro with the objectives of helping us grow as individuals in this crucial stage of our lives and better prepare us for our future years in university. I love to study philosophy, hiking/exploring the nature, doing sports, hang out with friends and gaming. My favourite subjects in school are maths, physics and chemistry.
PEDRO MACEDO
Group member
Hi, my name is Pedro I am 18 years old and I’m from Portugal. I love playing sports and video games. Im on the CLT subject, and this year we did this project about nuclear energy I choose this topic because I like physic and I also wanted to learn more about nuclear energy, how it was produced and how we can use it to replace the fossil fuels. Hope you liked it.