2007 International Nuclear Atlantic Conference - INAC 2007 Santos, SP, Brazil, September 29 to October 5, 2007 ASSOCIAÇÃO BRASILEIRA DE ENERGIA NUCLEAR – ABEN MANAGEMENT OF A SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POPULARIZATION PROJECT IN THE NUCLEAR AREA Wellington Antonio Soares 1 and Fausto Maretti Júnior 2 Centro de Desenvolvimento da Tecnologia Nuclear (CDTN/CNEN/MCT) Caixa Postal 941 – Bairro Pampulha 30123-970 Belo Horizonte, MG 1 soaresw@cdtn.br 2 fmj@cdtn.br ABSTRACT The goal of this paper is to show the management results of the 2005-2007 project “Nuclear energy: itinerant expositions” sponsored by the Foundation for Research Support of Minas Gerais (Fapemig), a state agency, in a science and technology popularization program. The project coordinated by the Nuclear Technology Development Center (CDTN/CNEN) in partnership with the Minas Commerce Association (ACMinas) was designed to students from public high school of the Belo Horizonte metropolitan region. It consisted of an exposition and a previous talk motivating the audience to the nuclear technology in connection with subjects taught at schools, like physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, history, etc. Small scale models of nuclear and radioactive installations, irradiated food and fruits samples and colored gems by gamma rays were presented at the stand exposition. Designing, performing and evaluating the project required the following activities: searching of information on the target public, infrastructure mounting, team training, multimedia material elaboration, strategy for dealing with the students, talk presentation, distribution of booklet on nuclear themes, reception at the exposition, interviews with students and teachers by journalists, evaluation of the project by the schools, evaluation of the project by some students three months after the event and also reporting the project to the media. About forty people of CDTN took part in the project that reached thirty high schools and encompassed about 11,000 students. About five hundred state high school teachers of chemistry, physics and biology were reached by the experience of the project in a specialization course given by a local university. Only high approval was received by the project in the returned questionnaires. 1. INTRODUCTION Nuclear energy to the public is always associated with the production of nuclear weapons or nuclear and radiological accidents. Public communication actions done by the Nuclear Technology Development Center (CDTN) have been contributed to popularize the social and peaceful applications of nuclear technology having high-school students as main public target. Monitoring of students reached by such activities showed that private schools were the most ones to take part at these activities. The project “Nuclear energy: itinerant expositions” was approved in a popularizing science and technology program sponsored by the Minas Gerais government in 2004. Public high school students were the focus of the project. Stimulating such students for subjects, like physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, history, etc, awakening vocations to science and technology and also contributing for having citizens able to question their uses were the purpose of the project. Designed to be presented at schools, the project consisted of an exposition and a previous talk motivating the audience to the nuclear theme and at the same time associating it to subjects taught at such schools. The project consisted basically of an introductory talk on fundamentals and applications of the nuclear energy and ionizing radiation followed by a visit on a nuclear stand exposition. Researchers and technicians of CDTN were present at the stand talking with the students about their doubts, fears and curiosities on the nuclear energy.