Center for Nonproliferation Studies Monterey Institute of International Studies

Welcome to the CNS Critical Issues Forum

The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) developed the Critical Issues Forum (CIF) to increase awareness of disarmament and nonproliferation issues and to engage and recruit the next generation of nonproliferation specialists. Specifically, CIF is designed to involve pre-college high school students and their teachers in issues of proliferation and control of weapons of mass destruction.

View the "Critical Issues Forum" video to see what this "real world" project is all about.

The CIF Program is supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy and the Ford Foundation and hosted at The Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

News for the 2011-2012 CIF Project Year

UPDATE: Resources from the CIF Teacher Workshop held in Monterey, California, Dec 1-3, 2011, are now available. Click "Resource Links" on the left side menu.


CIF Information from previous project years


2010 - 2011

The CIF 2010-2011 Student Conference was held April 28-30, 2011, in Monterey, California. The conference report is available. The conference agenda is available as a PDF file.

The CIF 2010-2011 topic is "Nuclear Energy and Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East." The CIF Teacher Workshop (agenda available) was held in Monterey, California, from November 18-20, 2010. Teacher participants were from nine U.S. schools, one Chinese school, two Russian schools and NCEIC (Nuclear Cities Education and Information Center in Novouralsk, RU). A report on the workshop is available.

The CIF 2010 Benchmarks and Learning Objectives are available.

Student responses to the 2010-2011 Benchmarks are available as they are submitted and revised.

Schools participating in this year's CIF project can be found at the High Schools link to the left.

2009 - 2010

The CIF 2009-2010 topic was "Nuclear Nonproliferation: Global Opportunities and Regional Challenges." The CIF student conference was held in Monterey, California, US, from April 22-24, 2010, at the Casa Munras Hotel.

A conference report is available on the CNS website. Student work on the CIF topic for this year is now available. Videos of some of the school presentations at the conference are available in the conference report.

Critical Issues Forum 2010 Conference group photo
Critical Issues Forum Student Conference 2010 participants

The Benchmarks and Learning Objectives for the 2009-2010 Critical Issues Forum topic are available. A list of participating schools for the 2009-2010 school year is available.

The Fall Teacher Workshop (agenda and presentations are available) was held November 12-14, 2009, in Monterey, California. Teacher participants were from thirteen U.S. schools, two Russian schools and NCEIC (Nuclear Cities Education and Information Center in Novouralsk, RU). The CIF Workshop Report is available on the CNS web site.

CIF TEacher Workshop Participants Nov 2009
Teacher Workshop Participants November 2009

2008 - 2009

The CIF topic for 2008 - 2009 was "Nuclear Disarmament: Challenges, Opportunities and Next Steps." Check the "Program Materials" link in the left-side menu for details.

CIF group photo 2009
Critical Issues Forum 2009 Conference Participants
at the Monterey Hyatt April 23-25, 2009

2007 - 2008

The CIF topic for 2007 - 2008 was "Nuclear Renaissance: Benefits vs. Risks."


Critical Issues Forum 2008 Conference Participants

2006 - 2007

CIF Background Information

CIF provides students with instruction and guidance in research methodologies, including brainstorming, evaluation of content, synthesis of information, and writing. CIF emphasizes strategies that can be used with the Internet. The program involves nonproliferation specialists, scientists, and other professionals from the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, NASA, the Naval Postgraduate School and the Defense Language Institute to ensure accuracy and appropriateness of content.

Critical Issues Forum is a national and international program originally created in 1996, the brainchild of Rick Alexander and Bill Robertson both of whom were at that time working at Los Alamos National Lab. The forum was designed to address the need of today’s high students to move beyond the anachronistic high school curriculum and examine contemporary topics using a Critical Thinking Curriculum Model. The first topic looked at the development of nuclear physics and the making of the atomic bomb during the Manhattan Project of World War II.

Each year Rick and Bill added more high schools to the project and, with the aid of a core team of teachers including Sue Ann (Dobbyn) Jones, wrote several more modules dealing with terrorism, disposition of nuclear materials, nuclear nonproliferation, and biological and chemical warfare. In 1997 CIF spread to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where it was headed by Dr. Stephen Sesko. Dr. Sesko is now celebrating his 12 year anniversary with CIF.

Early in its history, CIF involved U.S. high schools from five western states. By 2002 - 2003, the CIF project included 13 high schools nationwide plus international participants from five high schools in Russia and one in the U.K. In 2003 - 2004 a total of 26 schools, 16 in the U.S. and 10 in Russia, participated. By 2004-2005, 11 schools in Russia plus 17 in the U.S. participated along with an observer from Japan.

CIF Programs since 2000

http://www.criticalissuesforum.org/index.html
updated 05 December 2011

Masako Toki
CIF Program Manager
http://www.criticalissuesforum.org
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