Anyways, welcome back to the blog. This time around I’ll be covering my trip to Hanford, what I liked, what I learned, and how it made me a better person.. all that jazz.
September this year, I got the chance to embark on another PLP educational excursion! Though I’ve enjoyed my time on many other PLP trips this one was different in that I discovered something that I would’ve never found interesting had I not experienced it first hand. I got to see the Hanford Nuclear Reactor (Reactor B if we’re getting specific) in person, the only functioning nuclear reactor open to the public. Even still, it had a very top secret vibe throughout which made me realize how intense the feeling of gravitas looming over Hanford must have been when it was fully operational. When it came to the reactor itself it was impressive, pictures do not do it justice, but here it is anyway:
You can probably see what I’m talking about, it just looks like a huge wall. What I didn’t realize before seeing this behemoth first hand was that there are so many little bits and pieces that it could pass for the beta version of V.I.K.I. from I, Robot:
By this point you’re wondering where Hanford is, and the simple answer is Washington, and actually that’s the only answer. It’s in Washington. But I wouldn’t really agree and call it a city, or even a town. I’d just describe it as an area, with some really cool stuff spread thin across it all.
Take a look at this map, note that Hanford is the represented by the entire salmon coloured blob.
If you’ve ever been to Seattle, Seattle is 84 square miles. The Hanford Nuclear Site is a massive 586 square miles, seven times larger than the city of Seattle. I found it hard to believe that the government could takeover that much land practically overnight, and that was their idea of subtlety.
Despite kicking many people off of the Hanford territory, the Manhattan project attracted thousands of new workers from across the United States, all seeking opportunity. Because the war made sure most healthy white men were overseas, The Hanford Project was forced to hire those who would not normally be considered. This included Latinos, African Americans, and people who would be seen as too old to work in construction. This led to discrimination that was cause for a harsh environment for many on site.
The topic of Discrimination at Hanford was one my group and I (Teva, Matthew, Brianna, and Alanah) picked, as we realized that the countless stories of Hanford workers offer a window into the era and what life was like for different people. Because this unit was all about historical perspective we decided it would be our perfect topic.
When it came to the technical side of the project we decided to stray from the typical format of a documentary style, and instead went for a quicker paced video that only mentions essential points necessary to the story. This means our video has no voice audio, besides interview footage from experts at the site, and is only about 4 minutes. This is compared to other groups videos which are all around 15 minutes. Our goal was to achieve the same level of storytelling, and information, as a longer video but in a refined version. In the end I think we achieved this goal. If we were to do it again however, I think we should’ve fully committed to the idea sooner so we could’ve done more drafts. Because of some hesitation when starting the new idea due to the element of risk that was present, we didn’t have as much time as would’ve been ideal. Despite this I’m still satisfied with the final product. Speaking of which here is the video about the Manhattan Project Hanford Site:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bxyi4vIa73oGcTRhTjY2bGpqYTg