The primary purposes of the university critical inquiry courses are to aid in the retention and academic success of the students involved in taking the courses. The course subject matter is faculty dependent and variable. "Nuclear Enviroethics for the 21st Century" is an attempt to develop a non-engineering, non-science major, entry- level course stressing the issues, responsibilities, problems, and promises presented by the utilization of nuclear-related systems and technologies. The benefits of these systems must be balanced against the risks created. The purpose of this course is to give a balanced view, both positive and negative, of the impact of these systems on the current and future status of our society (e.g., nuclear medicine, food irradiation, greenhouse gases, acid rain, fossil versus nuclear power, nuclear waste problems, safeguards, etc.). The basic assumption is that the average high school graduate who is not pursuing a degree in science and engineering should be able to assimilate the broad area of nuclear-related systems impacting the citizens of this century. A useful, applicable outgrowth of the development of this course has been an appreciation of the potential impact of the geodemographic cluster analyses of marketing research. These cluster analyses, using available census data and other sources, are able to distinguish and classify individual groupings of the population based on geographic zip codes. In this course, they were utilized to verify modern mobility and diversity using the local zip codes as a geographic base. Modern America consists of a series of urban-suburban-rural villages where people live in distinct life styles. Companies are now able to take 281.4 million Americans and split them into different life-style clusters (e.g., Claritas 62 clusters). The clusters reveal how you live, what you buy, and the details of your life. They reveal political attitudes, media preferences, home selections, services, and tastes in everything from automobiles to snack foods. As a practical waste management application, these same data need to be examined around present and planned nuclear-related facilities and repositories. Know who your stakeholders are before you try to convince them of anything. If we are able to communicate to them the broad aspects of a nuclear age, we are accomplishing the task. Education of the public, our stakeholders, is critical to the acceptance or rejection of a coming nuclear century.
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