Intro:

Hey reader! It’s been a while…

Welcome to my first blogpost of grade 11! We have recently, finished the first project of this academic year all about nukes, wars and humans who would change the world of science forever; so of course, it’s reflection time!

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Recap & Project Overview:

So if you couldn’t tell from the title, this project studies the Manhattan Project. From the discovery of the atom and how to split it to its long lasting consequences, we learnt all about the topic in question with a plan to create a speech as a final product. The theme or driving question of the speech and this project is “How did splitting the atom (and the Manhattan Project) change the world?” and it was up to us to decide how we would interpret and argue this topic in a 4 minute speech. We would go through research and complete various keystones in this project working towards this final speech so let’s go through, what we did and what I learnt more specifically.

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Research & Learning:

So before any good work can be done, we first need pure, simple knowledge. We spent probably a good 2 weeks in just the research phase in which we would watch presentations, videos and lectures by Ms. Madsen. We learnt about anything to do with the Manhattan Project whether it be the scientific discoveries that paved the path to it’s creation to the effects it would have in the world. We completed mini worksheets and assignments in this phase building our knowledge arsenal ready for our own use. This time of the project didn’t necessarily build practical skills built helped me learn the pure fundamental knowledge regarding this topic and personally, I think absorbed a lot of information.

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Keystone 1 :

Straight after our initial research phase, we began our first milestone. The task was simple, using the knowledge we learnt, we should create a keynote (presentation) on the Manhattan Project that even a ten year old would understand. We did this based on the “Feynman Learning Principle” which is all about the concept of teaching others to better understand the teaching yourself.

It was a fairly simple task and I believe as with the rest peers that we accomplished this keystone with no problem. Most of use did have minor vocabulary and clarification revisions but overall, a keystone well done.

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Speech Writing:

Our second keystone was to make recording no longer than 3 minutes of yourself explaining the significance of the “Manhattan Project” using the event significance criteria we had just learnt about. This keystone focused less on our interpretation of the significance but rather following a standardized criteria and arguing this point. Once again this was a fairly simple keystone that I believed my peers and I accomplished well.

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Speech Delivery:

Finally, we had the big presentation. Before this, we also had a mini keystone 3 on better speech presentation and techniques that was meant to benefit the production of this final speech. We had all created scripts and were ready to present. As somewhat hinted above, the final presentation differed from the video because of how we choose to present the significance. Keystone 2 required the use of the event significant criteria however, in this final speech, it was up to our own interpretation on how we chose to argue this. Unfortunately, I did not pick up on this until presentation day. My was similar to my video as my method of arguing significance was using the criteria. I went through the questions we used rather than crafting an opinion and using it as a method of argument like many of my peers which is not wrong, but to me, lead to a blander presentation. Truthfully, I feel I answered the question “How did splitting the atom (and the Manhattan Project) change the world?” better than most of my academics but overall, I had a more boring presentation due to a lack of opinion.

On the day, I felt my delivery was overall confident and well done. I felt like I didn’t look up enough as I was to busy reading off my iPad which is something I hope to improve on by memorizing certain line allowing me the freedom of taking my eyes off the script. We had done presentation workshops before so I think there was nothing majorly wrong.

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Final Reflection and Thoughts:

Overall, if I had to rank this project in both enjoyment and achievement, it would be up there as one of my best. Although there might have been various things to improve on, especially in my speech content. Hopefully moving forward, I will be able to find a balance in my speech in which I can use both standard thought processes and my own beliefs to create a blend of both interest and practical debate.

Thank you Ms. Madsen, and goodnight!