Hello readers and welcome back to the blog! Today I’ll be talking about our most recent project called “the Manhattan Project Project”. This project was about, (you can guess I’m sure), about the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. Our final product was an interactive book that explained the historical significance of the Manhattan Project. The driving question was: “How did the development of the atomic bomb change the world?”
The atomic bomb had both positive and negative consequences. Firstly, it led to more scientific developments, new forms of energy, and new medicines. Secondly, it led to millions of deaths and ignited a period known as the “Cold War”, a dispute which still rages on today between the US and communist states.

This project did include a field study in New Mexico in the US. However, I didn’t go, I chose to go on a trip to Nevada which will happen in April of next year. The first step in this project was assigning groups, as this was a collaborative project. My group partners were: Teva, Dana, Theryn, and Ben T. Using Basecamp, we then created a group folder where we could assign tasks and keep track of what we were working on. I found this to be a very helpful tool and it set us on the path to success. In order to get an idea of what we were doing, we read some books from past PLP students. In doing this, we got some inspiration and also got ideas for color, theme, etc. During the week that some of our peers were away in New Mexico, the rest of us did some preliminary research on our topic. One of my main responsibilities was completing research, as well as proofreading the pieces of writing that would go into our book. We started to gain a baseline knowledge and focused in on what aspects we wanted to include in our book. Dana and Theryn collected interviews, photos, and videos while they were on the trip, and they also immersed themselves in the Manhattan Project. They visited Los Alamos, the site where the project was located, and they also visited the Trinity site, (where they tested the first atomic bomb). All of this media would be key in our final book, as it further proved the historical significance behind it.

Once we built our knowledge it was time to put it all together…

Completing the book took lots of work and collaboration between our group, everyone had important tasks they were responsible for. My role was to complete pieces of writing, and then insert them into the book. Once we felt like we had a good draft we did some peer critique as a class. We got some helpful feedback from some other groups, their main focus points, were to limit text and make our visual aspects more organized. We acted upon this feedback and created a beautiful final draft!

In conclusion, I thought this project was difficult yet it focused on a topic that I had an interest in. Competing for the book was a grind, but it was all worth it in the end, as we had created something that we were all proud of. The field school in New Mexico looked fun, I’m super hyped for when we get to go to our field school in Nevada!

Thanks for reading!