Learning the Nuclear: Educational Tourism in (Post)Industrial Sites
Summary
Excerpt
Table Of Contents
- Cover
- Title
- Copyright
- About the editor
- About the book
- This eBook can be cited
- Table of Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction. Nuclear Tourism as an Emerging Area of Learning about Nuclear Energy (Natalija Mažeikienė)
- References
- Revisiting Educational Potential of the Industrial Heritage Tourism: Ruhr Area in Germany and Ignalina Power Plant Region in Lithuania (Ilona Tandzegolskienė)
- Introduction
- Theory Part 1: Spatial and Social Changes of Industrial Heritage and (Post)-Industrial Landscape
- Changes in the Conception of Heritage in the Industrialisation Period
- The Use of Scar Metaphor in Defining the Relevance of Heritage
- The Trends of Urban Change Dependent on Industrial Heritage Objects or Post-Industrial Landscape
- Theory Part 2: The Possibility of Transformative-Experiential Learning Developed within Educational Tourism When Interacting with the Objects of Industrialisation Process
- Methodology Part 3: Presentation of the Research Method of Case Study
- Part 4. Presentation of the Research: The Case of the Ruhr Area Transformation in Germany
- Presentation of Landschaftspark DuisburgNord in Duisburg
- Presentation of Zollern Colliery in Dortmund
- Presentation of the World Heritage Site Zollverein Coal Mine Industrial Complex in Essen
- Presentation of German Mining Museum in Bochum
- The Industrial Heritage in the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant Region and Visaginas City
- Generalisation
- References
- The Pedagogy of Dissonant Heritage: Soviet Industry in Museums and Textbooks (Linara Dovydaitytė)
- Introduction
- A (Double) Dissonance in Industrial Heritage
- Industrial Heritage: What and Whose Stories?
- Industrial Heritage and Nostalgia
- What’s Industrial in Industrial Museums?
- The Narration of Soviet Industry in History Textbooks
- Conclusions
- References
- Place and Language Transformations in a Post-Soviet Landscape: A Case Study of the Atomic City Visaginas (Ineta Dabašinskienė)
- Introduction
- Visaginas: From the Planned Soviet Past to the No-Where Future?
- Theoretical Approach and Methodological Remarks
- Language Policies, Attitudes and a Sense of Belonging
- Language, Authenticity and Commodification
- Conclusions
- References
- Energy Tourism at Nuclear Power Plants: Between Educational Mission and Retention of “Safety Myth” (Eglė GerulaitienėandNatalija Mažeikienė)
- Introduction
- Methodology
- Conceptualizing Nuclear Tourism as a Specific Form of Energy and Industrial Tourism
- A Shift from Special Interest Groups’ Tourism to Attracting Families and Children to Nuclear Power Plants
- Energy Tourism as a Part of Corporate Branding. Creating a “Safety Myth” at the Visitor Centres of Nuclear Power Plants
- Nuclear Power Plants as Objects of Cultural and Historical Heritage
- Torness Nuclear Power Station as an Educational Site and Energy Tourism Attraction
- Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant: Exploring Education and Tourist Facilities at the Enterprise Under Decommissioning
- Visit to Ignalina NPP Closed Territory – “Security Theatre” and the Masquerade
- Exploring Narratives of INPP at Information Centre
- Conclusions
- References
- Chernobyl Museum as an Educational Site: Transforming “Dark Tourists” Into Responsible Citizens and Knowledgeable Learners (Natalija MažeikienėandEglė Gerulaitienė)
- Introduction
- The Cultural Construction of Disaster in Tourism Destinations
- Methodology of the Research
- Chernobyl Museum as a Disaster and Dark Tourism Destination
- Construction of the Nuclear Nation and Nuclear Belonging at the Chernobyl Museum
- Epic Heroic Narrative in Commemorating Heroes – Clean-up Workers (Liquidators)
- Comparing Heroic Narratives of the Chernobyl Museum with Non-heroic Representations in Other Texts: An Intertextual Reading
- Structural Approach to the Chernobyl Disaster: Learning How the “Soviet System” Worked
- Learning about Radiation in the Contaminated Nuclear Landscape
- Existential Conceptualisation of Time at the Chernobyl Museum: Multiple Temporalities in the Interplay Between Chronos and Kairos
- Kairos in the Symbolic, Philosophical and Religious Narrative on the Disaster
- Conclusions
- References
- Fun in the Power Plant. Edutainment in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone Tourism (Magdalena Banaszkiewicz)
- Introduction
- Tourism in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Numbers and in Tourism Studies
- Education and Entertainment in Tourism
- Educational Nuclear Tourism in the CEZ
- Summary and Conclusions
- Acknowledgements
- References
- What We Find Outdoors: Discovering Nuclear Tourism Through Educational Pathways (Lina Kaminskienė)
- Introduction
- Pedagogical Approaches in Implementing Outdoor Education
- Pedagogies of place: natural history
- Landscape analysis
- School journeys (excursions)
- Field studies
- Outdoor adventure activities
- Action research
- Cultural journalism
- Outdoor education and problem-based learning
- Impact of Outdoor Education: Cognitive, Affective, Social/Interpersonal and Physical/Behavioural
- Outdoor Education and Educational Tourism
- Outdoor Education in Different Educational Levels and Contexts
- Outdoor education in kindergarten
- Outdoor education in primary, lower and upper secondary schools
- Implementation challenges
- Outdoor Education in the Context of Developing Educational Tourism in Visaginas and Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant
- Conclusions
- References
- Innovative Technological Solutions in Virtual Nuclear Education (Judita Kasperiūnienė)
- Introduction
- Methodology
- Findings
- Dominating Topics of Virtual Nuclear Education Empirical Research
- Educational Gaming to Explore and Analyze Real-Life Issues
- Virtually Enhanced Touring to Engage and Interact with New Knowledge
- Geolocation Technologies of Virtual Tours Development
- Discussion and Conclusions
- Limitations
- References
- Energy Literacy in Geography Curriculum: Redefining the Role of Nuclear Power in Changing Energy Landscapes (Odeta NorkutėandNatalija Mažeikienė)
- Introduction
- A New Role of Geography in Teaching and Learning Energy Literacy and Promoting Education for Sustainability
- Energy Geography in the Curriculum of the Future and Survival
- The Changing Energy Landscape as the Main Concept of Energy Geography
- A New Pedagogy and Active Methods in Addressing Pedagogical Challenges and Overcoming Difficulties in Teaching Energy Geographies
- Teaching About Nuclear Energy: Enhancing Energy Literacy and Scientific Literacy
- Energy Literacy and Energy Issues in the National Curriculum of Geography in Lithuania
- The Concept of Nuclear Energy in Lithuanian Textbooks on Geography
- The Concept of Nuclear Energy in Forms 9–10
- Identification of the Significance of Nuclear Industry
- Revealing the Role of Nuclear Energy in the World
- Revealing the Threats of Nuclear Energy
- Review of the Situation of Nuclear Energy in Lithuania
- The Concept of Nuclear Energy in Forms 11–12
- Social and Urban Aspects of Nuclear Energy
- Militaristic Aspects of the Use of Nuclear Energy
- Scientific and Technological Progress and Nuclear Energy
- Generalisation on the Explanation of Nuclear Energy in the Textbooks for Forms 10–12
- Conclusions
- References
- List of Figures
- List of Tables
- About the Authors
- Series index
Natalija Mažeikienė
Introduction. Nuclear Tourism as an Emerging Area of Learning about Nuclear Energy
Sites of nuclear energy research, development and testing of nuclear weapons, atomic energy reactors or places of nuclear disasters are becoming attractive tourist destinations. The authors of this book discuss the educational potential of nuclear tourism and learning about nuclear power in informal and non-formal learning settings. This monograph is an outcome of a research project EDUATOM devoted to the elaboration of the virtual nuclear tourism route in Ignalina Power Plant region in Lithuania1.
On the one hand, the popularity of nuclear tourism is related to the development of energy tourism, which has long been a niche and expert-based tourism, attracting engineers, scientists, high school students studying nuclear physics, chemistry, engineering, and recently has been undergoing a transformation by opening up to new groups of tourists – students of all ages and citizens of different groups. On the other hand, the rise of nuclear tourism has been related to the cultural processes of heritagization when the history of nuclear energy research and the atomic energy industry have become an issue of atomic heritage that serves for the identity building of nations and communities. Such heritagization of the atomic past in the U.S. is exemplified by exhibitions and museums established in atomic cities, at nuclear weapons complexes, and other venues to construct the memory on the era of the atomic bomb development under the Manhattan Project during the Cold War period (Mollela, 2003).
A positive approach towards atomic heritage referring to atomic energy industry represents an idea of scientific achievements and promises of the atomic era. On the contrary, atomic heritage related to nuclear disasters (The Chernobyl Museum, Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, etc.) and disastrous use of nuclear weapons (Hiroshima Peace Memoria in Japan, the Bikini Atoll Nuclear Test Site in the Marshall Islands, Kakadu National Park in Australia) represents ←12 | 13→a dystopian account by representing the dark and difficult pasts (Storm et al., 2019). Both utopian and dystopian visions of the use of the atom created at these heritage sites appeal to a broader public imaginary of nuclear and radioactive dangers and disasters (Ibid.).
Heritagization of the atomic past and development of tourism at nuclear power plants is incorporated into the broader process of creating value of industrial heritage, when the memory of the industrial past in post-industrial society begins to be nurtured and industrial landscapes, buildings, and artifacts start to be treated as valuable cultural objects that must be preserved. In this process, nuclear power plants with closed reactors and damaged landscapes become objects of industrial heritage (Storm, 2014).
In the chapter Revisiting Educational Potential of the Industrial Heritage Tourism: Ruhr Area in Germany and Ignalina Power Plant Region in Lithuania, the co-author of this book, Ilona Tandzegolskienė discusses how educational industrial tourism in the (post)-industrial landscapes becomes a transformative experience, preserves memory, promotes urban development, and identity building. Narrative practices in educational tourism, art projects, and entertainment activities connect landscape and industrial facilities with memory and human experience of local community and tourists. These practices of interpretation of the past and present become a means of constructing a new post-industrial identity of the community. However, this process of remembrance and creating a heritage has a contradictory nature since the industrial past and industrialization are associated in many cases with negative painful processes of the obstructive and devastating impact on the landscape, natural environment, social development, and local identity. Scholars use the metaphor of wound and scar to express this negative element in the nature of industrial heritage (Storm, 2014). Authors analysing the industrial past in Lithuania (Drėmaitė, 2002, 2012) reveal negative meanings ascribed to industrialization which is associated with Soviet legacy. Industrialization falls into the category of dissonant heritage, inconvenient, and unwanted past.
The co-author of this book, Linara Dovydaitytė, dedicates the chapter The Pedagogy of Dissonant Heritage: Soviet Industry in Museums and Textbooks to heritagization of the nuclear industry in Lithuania and reveals features of the memory work on the nuclear past. In the post-Soviet politics of memory (including public pedagogy and educational discourse), the Soviet industry is treated as a difficult legacy since it is associated not only with modernization but also related with Soviet occupation, environmental issues, and negative impact on the social and cultural identity of citizens. INPP and nuclear industry in Lithuania are considered in the public political discourse as a Soviet nuclear ←13 | 14→project, and in this sense, the past of the nuclear industry does not fall into the category of valuable heritage. At the same time, conflictual interpretation of the Soviet industrial past leads to problematic development of the identity of post-industrial society since the work and life of former industrial communities are not being interpreted as valuable and memorable. That is why the contradictory nature of heritagization of the industrial past poses challenges for tourism and public pedagogy (museums and other educational sites). The authors of this book emphasize the importance of combining the critical thinking approach with empathy to local communities and formal workers of the industry.
In this regard, Ineta Dabašinskienė, the author of the chapter Place and Language Transformations in a Post-Soviet Landscape: A Case study of the Atomic City Visaginas, poses a question how after the closure of the INPP the unique multilingual and multicultural profile of the atomic town Visaginas can become a valuable resource for the education and tourism which would contribute to producing an economic value and building a new positively affirmed post-nuclear identity.
Nuclear tourism is analysed in the book as a specific case of energy tourism. On the one hand, excursions and activities of the Visitor Centres are aimed at developing STEM, energy literacy and environmental skills; on the other hand, loyalty of energy companies’ consumers has been formed. Furthermore, energy companies conduct corporate branding and public relations through tourism, seek to shape positive attitudes of energy consumers and citizens towards energy sources and energy companies. The co-authors of this book, Eglė Gerulaitienė and Natalija Mažeikienė, present a critical assessment of nuclear tourism in the chapter Energy Tourism at Nuclear Power Plants: Between Educational Mission and Retention of the “Safety Myth”, discussing the features of nuclear tourism at atomic reactors. Visitors to nuclear power plants participate in the educational process by gaining knowledge in various fields about the operation of nuclear power plants, participating in STEM education, and improving energy literacy. Alongside all this education, pronuclear indoctrination takes place, when nuclear tourism becomes a means of persuasion and purposeful communication of the nuclear industry, to form pro-nuclear attitudes and positive opinion about the nuclear energy industry and specific companies. Nuclear power plants use tourism to demonstrate security practices and procedures, strengthening the image of a reliable and safe industry. Another important development in nuclear tourism is the transition from expert-based to experience-based tourism, whereas nuclear reactors, like other industrial and energy tourism objects, attract tourists due to their specific physical qualities – exceptional grandeur, unusual appearance, ←14 | 15→and shape. When visiting large-scale industrial facilities, tourists experience special strong feelings – admiration for the majesty of industrial ‘cathedrals’. The experience of tourists in nuclear reactors is twofold – on the one hand, visitors are aware of the dangers posed by radiation, and this causes a special thrill. On the other hand, the safety procedures organized at nuclear power plants involve tourists in ‘security theatre’ performances, which also create special feelings and experiences for visitors and explains the attractiveness of this tourist destination.
In addition to excursions organized by energy companies and nuclear power plants, other nuclear tourism destinations also attract tourists’ attention. Natalija Mažeikienė and Eglė Gerulaitienė, co-authors of the chapter Chernobyl Museum as an Educational Site: Transforming ‘Dark Tourists’ into Responsible Citizens and Knowledgeable Learners, analyse the educational potential of the Chernobyl Museum as a cultural interpretation of nuclear disaster. Whereas expositions of nuclear power plants reflect an optimistic narrative presenting the nuclear energy as a future technology, antinuclear critical discourse on the unsafety of atomic industry and nuclear accidents (50 Miles, Chernobyl, Fukushima) is represented by museums, art projects, and tourist facilities which are not connected to the atomic industry. These sites raise questions about the real costs of nuclear energy – how much it ‘costs’ in terms of human health and life, evaluating its impact on the environment and future generations.
These ‘dark’ sites of nuclear energy disasters are memorials of the unsafety of nuclear energy, the danger to humanity and nature. Nuclear disaster-related museums and tourist destinations are a unique way to culturally construct a nuclear disaster, and it becomes a result of collective imagination and memory work. Nuclear disaster sites, museums, and memorials as a variety of dark tourism present people’s suffering and victimhood.
In this sense, a narrative on the mentioned objects differs from the optimistic story told by power plants, which radiates safety and reliability. Such places as the Chernobyl Museum has become a valuable spot to learn – it introduces the visitor to a structural approach to disaster, tells a story of how organizations and communities mobilized response efforts to disasters. That is why it has turned into a precious source for civic education and studying history. The Museum constructs and depicts the nuclear community, covers themes of nuclear geography, represents a critical historical approach to Soviet-regulated nuclear science and nuclear energy, which led to the disaster. In addition to the educational potential, the nuclear disaster expositions are designed to awaken the visitors’ existential experiences – to feel sublime – the ungraspable ←15 | 16→existential feeling of horror. The artistic installations at the Chernobyl Museum evoke deep philosophical and religious thoughts, contemplations, and feelings.
Nuclear disaster tourism combines an educational impact, which embraces rich knowledge from history, geography, sociology, nuclear energy, biology, and the environmental sciences. At the same time, the cultural construction of the Chernobyl catastrophe appeals to a broader area of nuclear imaginary dealing with dystopian post-apocalyptic images of nuclear disasters that were created in cinematography, literature, artworks (i.e. Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie ‘Stalker’, Svetlana Alexievich’s famous book on Chernobyl). It constructs prerequisites to establish stronger ties between non-formal learning in museums and tourist destinations and formal learning by using the intertextuality approach – by combining resources in outdoor education with school curriculum texts and using fiction, documentary and feature films.
Magdalena Banaszkiewicz, while discussing intensive touristification of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in the chapter Fun in the Power Plant. Edutainment in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone Tourism reveals how entertainment is created by appealing to the nuclear tourism imaginary stimulated by the global popular culture (i.e. video game ‘S.T.A.L.K.E.R.’, HBO series Chernobyl). Nuclear tourism in the Chernobyl Zone seeks to create visitors’ specific experience, which becomes a mixture of thrill, sense of risk, and excitement. Magdalena Banaszkiewicz describes new approaches in tourism when tourism based on principles of pleasure and relaxation 3S (sun, sea, sand) gives up position to 3E (entertainment, education, excitement) and 3F (fun, friends, feedback). Combining entertainment with education, tours to The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, can be turned from the ethically controversial endeavour of dark and toxic tourism to activities which ‘can provide a strong educational experience, raising awareness about the current environmental issues and the polluted environmental conditions around us’ (Di Chiro (2000), cit. by Yankowska and Hannam, 2014, p. 937).
The authors of this book discuss how cooperation between educators in the tourism sector and those in formal education can take place. In the chapter What We Find Outdoors: Discovering Nuclear Tourism Through Educational Pathways, Lina Kaminskienė analyses the concept of outdoor education, deliberating the possibilities of using educational resources outside the school. Educational nuclear tourism includes a specific form of non-formal education which creates an educational potential for visitors when links with formal education are strengthened through the implementation of contextual learning, place-based education, and region-focused curriculum. The concept of outdoor education is applied in the sites of nuclear tourism through school ←16 | 17→journeys, field trips, and other events and educational activities. According to Kaminskienė, outdoor education in nuclear tourism sites could be organized through place-based education which incorporates concepts of experiential education, community-based education, and education for sustainability.
Details
- Pages
- 386
- Publication Year
- 2021
- ISBN (PDF)
- 9783631847343
- ISBN (ePUB)
- 9783631847350
- ISBN (MOBI)
- 9783631847367
- ISBN (Hardcover)
- 9783631841631
- DOI
- 10.3726/b18090
- Open Access
- CC-BY
- Language
- English
- Publication date
- 2022 (July)
- Published
- Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2021. 386 pp., 47 fig. b/w, 12 tables.
- Product Safety
- Peter Lang Group AG
