Filed under: Humanities
So this unit was introduced to as ‘The Manhattan Project… Project,’ that is not only due to Mr. Hughes’ strange but lovable sense of humor but also the fact that we were doing a project, about somebody else’s project. To go with these projects we went on a field school as well, you can read about that here.
Every PLP project has a driving question, for us to make a project around and to have in our minds throughout all of the activities we do. We had a long one for this unit. It was, how did the development of the atomic bomb affect the lives of those living in the Hanford area, and what role did they play in ushering the Atomic age? We started with a brief rundown/catchup. The Manhattan project was a research and development project during World War II that produced the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. It was started in secret in 1939, and ran all the way until 1946.
The first assignment we did was all about getting us in the right mindset and time period for the time. We started by making a news reel that breaks the news to the American people about the dropping of the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This started everything, it helped us start to understand how the world of the time would reacted to such impactful news, and what would happen next. I was put in a group with Izzy, Alex, and Claire. This mini-project made me very excited because I got to be a midwestern announcer. Confused what that means? Observe.
When this was going on we started to play an education game. I know. Weird. Basically this game is about people who lived in Los Alamos, the main location where the Manhattan project was built from. Even though this wasn’t directly about the people who worked in Hanford, where our project was centred, it gave us the building blocks of what working at the time was like. Personally, I found this super helpful. This is a link to the game in the App Store.
The reason we were learning about these people was because we were going to be making character cards. Similar to trading cards, character cards have an image, and some background information about the person. We had learned about what living and working in these ‘nuclear cities’ was like, now it was time to go more in depth on one important person. I chose Gerhart Friedlander. Gerhart Friedlander was the head chemist on the Manhattan Project. Friedlander was born in Munich, Germany. He fled Nazi Germany for the United States in 1936. After emigrating, he studied at the University of California, Berkeley, earning a PhD. This is my character card about Gerhart, It looks very cookie-cutter but we were instructed to follow a strict criteria.
Then the PLP teachers went away. They went on a trip with another class for a whole week, so they left us with some work, not just some work though. A LOT of work. We were given a package. A work package. The theme of this package was the next major piece of history that followed the dropping of the bombs was the Cold War. So this was a package about why the Cold War began. The package was forty four pages, that included thirteen sections. Each of these sections included some kind of activity or chart, with everything from response paragraphs, to fill in the blanks, and even as simple as answering some questions. I won’t bore you with all of the tiny assignments we did. Instead I’ll tell you about the final two. The first was a summary paragraph. The thirteenth section, this paragraph was a 400 word max summary about what we had learned. Here is mine. If you click the black bar you can read it.
How did the Cold War start? I can’t give you an exact date, not even the most knowledge historians can, but I can tell you how the chain reaction that became the Cold War began in my opinion. As soon as President Truman dropped the two bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima he debuted a power that had been kept secret. A superpower. A bringer of death. “Two thirds of the people of the earth would be killed.” That’s what Albert Einstein said about the outcome of a war fought with similar bombs. The US held the biggest stick, and that gave them a lot of confidence. Confidence to speak out against one of the most brutal powers of all time. The Soviet Union. On March 5th, 1946 Truman gave his famous anti-communism speech. This had all kinds of low jabs at the Soviet leader, Stalin. Phrases like, “an “Iron Curtain” has descended across the continent,” or that major cities all over Europe were; “all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.” Those backhanded insults lit a fire under the USSR, and they responded to the USA’s work to bring Europe together and way from them by creating the Zhdanov Doctrine. A set of beliefs promoting stricter government control and anti-Western bias. This is the exact opposite of what America is doing with their new idea; the Marshall Plan. The goal of this plan completely rivals the Zhdanov Doctrine. It’s purpose is to give generous provision of free financial aid for the reconstruction of war-torn Western Europe. It is obvious that the US is trying to gain the trust and coherence of countries like Italy, France, Portugal and more. If they gain the companionship of those countries, when the US needs help in a possible war against the Soviets in Europe, that have allies. The Soviet Union and the United States, two nations that had never been enemies officially, had even fought side by side during WWII to defeat the Nazis, were now undeclared enemies in a war that would never break out in the open, but which would last for more than fifty years
The second large assignment was a Keynote. We were tasked with making groups, so I ended up working with my friends, Spencer, Sam, and Simon. We were to make a pitch to ‘President Truman’ about what we should do about the Berlin Blockade. We were to use our learning from the 44 page booklet to show the American perspective on the matter, as well as the USSR’s perspective, a brief breakdown of what the blockade was, and finally a solution that we backed up with evidence. The first thing we needed to make was a slide deck for our presentation:
The second thing we had to make was a script, this script was the exhibition of what we knew, our presentation skills and how we executed the whole ensemble was key to our success. Below if you click the black bar you can read the whole pitch.
So, Mr. President. We have a problem. As we are sure you are aware, since June 24, 1948 we have been involved in the conflict that has become known as the Berlin blockade. Germany is occupied by both communist parties and western style democracy. Stalin believes that we are trying to extinguish communism, and destroy the USSR’s way of life. So, he instated the blockage around Berlin. The Blockade blocked our Western allies access to Berlin. America now cannot use railways, roads and canal routes to get into Berlin to supply western allies.
But why are they doing this? Because of the Zhdanov Doctrine. The Zhdanov Doctrine is a set of beliefs instated in Soviet Union based around the core idea of stricter government control over the working class and a strong anti-western bias. This is their response to our Marshall plan, and the aid that the plan brings. The soviets way to impose their ideals on the Germans is the Berlin Blockade, which was a way to slow down the incoming democratic aid from the US. We cannot let them block out the help that we are giving.
Now let’s look at at our stance so far, and everything backing us. We are taking the futuristic perspective by reaching out into Europe and helping countries that are rebuilding after affects of Nazi Germany and the lasting effects of WWII. We are giving aid to those in need, so that they help us down the road. We also want to give the people of Germany and surrounding countries the right to choose and vote. The purpose of the blockade is to keep the capital of Germany communist, which could cause all of Germany to become communist.
So. What should we do? The blockade is a way to keep us away from the people and countries in need. We cannot let that happen. The pilots patrolling and trying to keep us out of Berlin have difficult jobs, and are put in awkward positions. With the hard winter coming this is only going to get harder so we need to stay strong and wait for this fault Soviet plan to inevitably fail. These are hard times for us, but we are making it work. We need to keep doing everything we can for Berlin and it’s people. Our spirit and resilience will not be matched, and it’s only going to get harder for the Russians. Then, they will fall.
Now. The final product. Wow, it was quite the journey to get to this final product. The final product was a video, the video assignment was “History in 5.” The assignment was to create a video that gave 5 interesting facts about the Hanford nuclear site that the field school visited. We were Tom included knowledge and ideas from all past assignments and first had knowledge, interviews and media from the actual field school. For this final project I was grouped with Willa and Calum. The first thing we had to do was a brainstorm. We broke it down to be as simple as a classic ‘once upon a time’ style storyboard.
This isn’t our only storyboard, yes it looks barebones but it had more that went with it. We had a lost of shots we needed, fought notes of interview questions and Moreno that went into this video. I just really like how this on peice of paper sparked my group into action to create this video. We also did something when have never done before. We made what’s called a keynote storyboard, it’s basically an advanced shotlisg of everything that we wanted in the video. So, enough talking about the video and let’s just watch it.
So, that’s it. I have a lot of feelings about this video, the process was truly something painful and at times frustrating. In the beginning our plan was strong, and our group was working well, as a group we had a lot of diverse skills, from editing, to writing, to storytelling. I had kind of stepped into a leadership/organizational role. So, when I was rushed to the hospital that really threw a wrench in the plan. What would I have done differently if I did it again? A lot. First of all I would have gone on the field school, and when on it get a lot more B-Roll as well as more dialogue in the actual locations. I was happy how the intro, editing, and titles turned out, but every time I watch that video all I can think is that how I hated missing the opportunities of recording on site. What did I learn? A lot. I learned that sometimes taking a dominant leadership role doesn’t always fit because if that person is away, the project can fall apart. I also learned about the importance of resilience. This field school happened over a month but we still are here talking about it, we should’ve taken every minute in between then and now. So, yes. I learned a lot of hard lessons.
