Let me set the scene for you. It’s October 3rd and the PLP 11 class is on a journey from Portland, Oregon to Hanford, Washington. On this journey the class experienced beautiful art, ate delicious food, and saw wondrous land marks! Our goal for the journey? To learn about the world’s first nuclear bomb.
Hi everyone and welcome back to another blog post. I decided to start this blog with a dramatic opening. I’ve got you on the edge of your seat don’t I? That’s because I am going to write about one of the most exiting parts of PLP!
FEILD SCHOOLS!!!
Between October 3rd-6th, I was on the PLP 11 field school to the aforementioned Portland, Oregon and Hanford, Washington. If your a little confused on where this is, Please see the map bellow.
We took this trip to learn about how the Hanford nuclear site was significant to the creation of the first atomic bomb. However, this post is going to focus on the trip itself so I highly recommend you read on to learn more about the work we did around this subject.
-The Beginning-
We start our journey on the 3rd of October at 6:45am in the roundabout of Seycove Secondary School. Within 15 minutes (7:00am) we were off (a new record!). Once we crossed the Canada-US border ,our first stop was Powell’s Bookstore right in the centre of Portland. Powell’s was amazing and very quickly I found out why it was dubbed the LARGEST BOOKSTORE IN THE WORLD! This bookstore is home to over 32,000 categories and over 1 million books!
-Powell’s-
Though I loved seeing all the strange and wonderful books, our visit was not just for browsing. We had two tasks to complete while we where here.
1. In groups of four students, find a book and act out the title.
Quackery, a brief history of the worst ways to cure everything
I’d say mission accomplished.
2. Find a book that you thought was interesting and related to your hobbies and interests.
The book that I chose was called “Be Ready When The Sh*t Goes Down” by Forrest Griffin. I found this book interesting because I love learning about survival strategies for apocalyptic scenarios. I also thought the cover was really cool.
-Fire On The Mountain-
Our next stop was Fire on the Mountain. Fire on the Mountain is a very famous chicken wings restaurant in Portland. It’s rumoured that the restaurant has some of the hottest (as in spice) wings in Portland. One of the things I really enjoyed about this place was how they served every plate of wings on a Frisbee. I thought that was an interesting and much more fun alternative to plates.
-Mama Mia, Here I Go Again-
Our final stop before our hotel was Mcmenamins Kennedy school. Now you may be thinking that this in no way relates to the title of this section. I mean how could you get one of the most iconic lines of any ABBA song from an elementary school? Well this “elementary school” isn’t really a school at all. Its a movie theatre/hotel and as someone who grew up listening to ABBA for most of their childhood, I was over the moon to find out we were watching Mamma Mia 2.
-Reed College-
Our first stop of day 2 was Reed College. Reed College is home to a fully functional nuclear reactor. While we where there we where able to go into the room where the reactor was running to see it first hand. It was under 25 feet of water which both acted as a coolant and as a protective layer between us and the reactor.
-The Columbian River-
After we ate lunch we headed off to see the Vista House at Crown Point. This landmark is pretty much a lookout point over a vast expansion of the Columbian River. The view was incredible and made for a good background to our video project I mention in my other post.
-The Art Museum-
The next point of interest was the Maryhill Museum of Art, our first stop after crossing the state border into Washington. This museum had many marvels such as a variety of famous paintings, sculptures, and photos from all over the world. In addition it had the worlds largest chess collection.
While we where there we created a video on a sculpture or painting and why it interested us. Here’s mine.
-Stonehenge-
Once we finished up at the museum we traveled to a life sized version of stonehenge. This stonehenge lookalike just so happened to be on the same property as the museum. It was built as a tribute to the fallen World War One soldiers who used to live in that area. From there we went to our next hotel to end off the day.
-Hanford-
Finally, on day three of our trip, we made it to the Hanford site. This site has been decommissioned though, as I mentioned before, its former purpose was to produce plutonium for one of the first atomic bombs. First we visited the B reactor. This was the first full-scale plutonium reactor in the world. I found it really helped to see this reactor as it gave me a sense of just how big the whole operation was. During this time we also went to the pump house where water from the river was pumped into the reactor. We also visited one of the houses left behind when everyone who lived in that area was ordered to leave when the government claimed the site for the construction of Hanford. The house belonged to a German family who managed to stay many months after they where told to leave. The letter they received was to all american citizens so they assumed it didn’t apply to them.
-The Reach Museum-
Once we finished our Hanford tour we visited the Reach Museum in Richland Washington. In the museum there where two sections. One was on the history of the area and one was on the history of theHanford site.
-The Shrimp-
That night at dinner we attempted to clear red lobster of all their shrimp. It was their ALL YOU CAN EAT SHRIMP BUFFET! In the days leading up to this night we had all been briefed on our game plan for the night. We needed to start with the smaller shrimp so we could eat more to get a higher personal score. After 2 and a half hours of heavy eating my friend Ethan was crowned the victor at 143 shrimp.
This was an amazing trip full of fun and interesting things to see and do. If I where given the option to go on this trip again I would definitely go. It was a blast!