Fukishima Project in Year Nine

[Briggs]

My daughter, in Year Nine, is working on a project investigating the immediate effect and after-effects of the Fukishima tsunami and nuclear reactor catastrophe. I was wondering if this is limited to her school, or whether it's on the nationwide syllabus.

It certainly provoked an interesting conversation in our house when we talked about what it must have been like trying to survive inside the 5km and 20km red zone and having to evac from the 30km zone around the reactor. My daughter is an outdoorsy type but like most teenagers, she expects phones to work and light switches to operate lights, toilets to flush and taps to provide hot water, no matter what. (She thinks I'm kidding when I tell her about the 3 day week in the 70's and when I was her age I would be coming home from school to an empty, dark house with no means of power, heat, hot water or a hot meal). When we discussed how people faced the Fukishima situation with no power, no water, no food and all escape routes either blocked or through knee-deep water it certainly brought home the severity of the situation. It sparked up how we would have responded as a family, considering we live inside the 30km zone for one of the UK's reactors.

I thought if your children are doing the same sort of project it would be a handy conversation-starter about being more prepared at home.

With regards to our home being inside the 30km zone, the official emergency services guidance is to stay indoors, shut the windows, take some potassium iodide tablets and turn on the radio. Then presumably wait for a) evacuation or b) wait for an uncomfortable death.

I much prefer my chances with my alternative plans and the family are now a little more tuned into what option c) d) and e) mean for us.

Perhaps have a chat with your kids and see if this is something they are studying at school and if they aren't, then maybe discuss it anyway.