Here is my recommended song for this post.

Well, other year has dawned on us here at PLP and of course that includes a blog post. Over the last two months we have creating documentaries all about a plutonium extraction site called Hanford.

That was our final video draft but like I said it took us 2 months to get here. So let’s start at the beginning.

 

We began our unit with some back story on WWII and we reviewed the unit we did last year on it. We then went into looking at the nuclear bomb and why it was dropped. As our first assignment we created a video that was based on a news reel from that time. We had to report on the bombs being dropped in japan and give general information about it.

I was in a group with Adam, Claire and Izzy. I found this project really good as a bit of a launch for the year to get right back into PLP. It was also pretty fun to construct a script that reflected the American mindset at that time. Filled with patriotism and wanting to highlight the benefits of tragic events.

 

Next we began learning about the project that created the first atomic bombs. The Manhattan Project. We spent a lot of time looking at the creation of the project and everyone who was involved. We got to explore an app that toured the area called Los Alamos where a lot of the reaserch and testing was done for the project. We also created character cards for the key people of the project. We used a specific template and had to try to condense important information into a small paragraph to share the contributions our people did for the project.

After the character cards we began learning how the bombs actually worked. The crazy thing about the Manhattan project is that no one had ever gone this deep into nuclear research and many scientists were needed for the project. One of the coolest thing (to me) is that most of these scientists came from Germany or Nazi occupied countries and many were also Jewish. They came to America and pretty much said that Hitler was developing a similair program. Which of course scared the Americans into creating a similair project. Many of the scientists were doing trial and error with the design of the bombs and really they didn’t know if it would work until they actually tested it.

Now after learning all of all of this we were finally given our project brief. We had to create a documentary based around a “History in 5” video. So we had to have 5 unique facts that most people wouldn’t know, about Hanford. It was also recommended that they went around a central theme.

So I was grouped with Izzy and Robbie and we decided to focus on environmental and health issues about the site. Now a giant perk with PLP is that we go on field schools and since Hanford is located in Washington we went on a field school to do onsite filming and interviews.

 

 

Now down at Hanford many people were affected by the Manhattan Project, some positive but some negative. Of course before the site was actually used for the nuclear projects it was the home of many people. Those people were evicted from their land and were given little compensation. Then the workers came to the project site. They built up an economy for the area and things were prosperous. Of course there are serious health risks for working in a plutonium processing facility but nonetheless many people come and worked on the project and after the war as well. Going down to Hanford allowed me and my classmates to truly get a grasp and a sound appreciation for this and really I didn’t know about this before going down as well. That is the benefit of the field schools.

Now, before that though we spent a week doing research and forming our 5 points and we also did a really rough draft of what we wanted the video to look like and be structured.

Of course we did this before we left.

After finishing this draft we headed down to Hanford. We did a lot of onsite filming and my group was able to get some really great interviews from people who actually worked at the site, after the Manhattan Project.

When we got back we began putting our video together, going through the interviews and getting the key pieces we wanted.

We then went through a critique session (like usual) and we went back to editing. Our main critique was extending the video because it came across as rushed. And keeping the variety of media and just doing general edits to make the video flow better.

I found this unit really interesting to learn about. There were a lot of inner workings going on in WWII that most didn’t know about until after and I found it really cool to go and see the actual site where they produced a major component of the bomb.  It was a great set up unit for the rest of the year where we focus on the Cold War. It was a great way to start off the year and get back into the PLP way of learning. The one thing I want to work on going forward is expanding my own sets of skills and working on building ones I haven’t worked on for a while, like video editing. I also want to take my time and learn as much as possible about the topics, not that I didn’t do that this time, but I want to really learn about some of the really interesting things about the time periods we will be studying for the rest of the year.