I was pretty excited when I found out that we were going on a trip just a couple of weeks into my first year as a PLP student. I had heard a lot about the legendary PLP trips, but nothing could prepare me for those 4 days in Oregon and Washington. The days were truly full of fun, and a lot of hard work. When I look back at the trip, I know that I will always remember it. It was a unique learning experience that I was to lucky to be a part of.
This was not just a trip where we could sit back and relax. In groups of 5, we were tasked with creating a “5 minute movie”. These movies had to explore a topic surrounding our unit, Hanford and the Manhattan Project. Within our groups, we each had to focus on a specific part of our larger topic, in other words, a sub topic. Our group, composed of Chris, Nash, Tom, Maria, and myself, decided to study the science behind Hanford’s B Reactor, and my subtopic was focused on the cleanup of the B Reactor. The trip to Oregon and Washington would teach us more about our topics and provide us with great footage to use in our movies. On the trip, we had the opportunity to interview ex-Hanford workers and scientists. We would also get to tour the actual B Reactor. In short, this trip would provide us with everything we needed to create a professional quality movie.
This is a copy of the script I used for my part of the movie:
Leaving early in the morning, our drive down was anything but easy. At the border, our bus got stopped for a random check, causing a long wait. After that, our drive went according to plan. We had a brief stop for lunch, and by late afternoon, we were through Washington and into Oregon. That night we had a relaxing dinner and saw a movie. The hard work would begin the next day.
The next two days were a blur of activity. We saw a running nuclear reactor, drove through the Columbia River Gorge, stopped at museums and eventually ended up in Hanford, Washington. In Hanford, we received a tour of the whole site, as well as a tour of the B Reactor. Stationed inside the reactor were experts who could answer our questions. These experts all have small appearances in our films, providing some information to the viewers. Although it only lasted a few days, the trip was full of fun and hard work.
Once we were back in Vancouver, we had to take stock of the footage we had collected and begin to piece together our movies. We then recorded ourselves narrating parts of our films and finally stitched all 5 parts together. We then handed our movie in as a first draft. The teachers then critiqued our movies and we made the appropriate changes. After handing in two more drafts, our movie was finally finished.
If I had to do this project again, there are many things I would do differently. I would have written my script for my part of the movie before we left, instead of from my hotel room in Hanford. I would have gone into the trip with my topic not so narrow and would have had a more open mind about changes to my topic. I would have also taken more videos which would have given me more possible footage for my movie.
For more specific information on what we did daily on the trip, this is the trip itinerary:
Here it is. The movie that we spent so much time making:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bkg6HoPTGds