If you did not understand the title, this is a reflection blog of my time at Hanford.
Hanford, a vast open area of terrain now full of landmarks and national treasures, was once predominantly populated by hard working American citizens. Me being the lucky, High Performance Learner got to visit Hanford, and more importantly the Hanford B Reactor.
(What the Reactor looks like today)
The HPC (high performance cohort) were given the opportunity to spend four magical days in a land far away called Oregon. The HPC, all thanks to the wonderful Ms Willemse, got to tour the full Hanford site. The first part of the tour included background knowledge of how the Hanford site came to be, as well as information on the Hanford residence, which was incredibly intriguing. The latter half of the tour consisted of a viewing of the actual Reactor itself. The Reactor was the epitome of human ability, showcasing the collective engineering and science talent of the era. I was awestruck by the complexity of the system as a whole, trying, but failing, to fathom the finer details of the operation. Just to be able to see the wall of 2004 uranium rods in the actual reactor left my peers and me speechless.
(The Uranium rods in the reactor)
My teacher, Ms Willemse, set a task for the students to recreate a History in 5 short film. For example, the History in 5 film the class was shown had a main topic followed up by five subtopics. The criteria that was given to the class was that each group’s topic should all be based on the people, places, and events of the Manhattan Project at Hanford. For example, my group’s topic was the science behind the Hanford B reactor and our subtopics were;
Nash: The science behind the location selection
Chris: The actual engineering and science behind the Reactor
Cashel: Scientists behind the Clean up
Lastly, I chose to do the subtopic about Crawford Geenewalt
As I now look back on the Manhattan project, transparent flaws become visible. In order to successfully recreate a History in 5 movie your whole group has to have the same understanding of the project and what to do. Nash and Christopher were put at a disadvantage having to work with three new PLP students, Cashel, Maria and myself They had to plan most things out and teach us what to do and what Ms Willemse and Mr Hughes expects from this project, it certainly was a learning experience for us newbies. Once the group got rolling and everyone started to understand what to do, all the puzzle pieces started to fall into place. The only problem of a history in 5 movie is that the group split up and created their own script and own sub-movie. Trying to put these five different sub-movies together to create one full movie was certainly a challenge. Next time if given the opportunity to create another history in 5 movie, I think it should a complete group effort so the whole project flows more evenly.
All in all, my first ever group project and my first ever trip experience in this program was a shock. PLP is nothing like a regular boring old English class where all you do is write an essay, this is the famous World reknown Performance Learning Program we are talking about. The experiences I had on this trip are memories I will remember for a very long time. This experience was a great opening project to PLP for me, I cannot wait for more to follow.
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