Hello everyone and welcome back to year number 4!

To start off grade 11 we started looking at the end of World War II and the atomic bombing of Japan. In order to learn about this topic in more depth, we went on a field study to Hanford, Washington. This was a great location for the field study as it was one of three locations used to create the atomic bombs.

The final project was in groups to create a top 5 style video about different stories from the Manhattan Project. Here is my group’s final video:

Now for how we got there.

To start the unit off we looked back at the entirety of World War II to regain our knowledge of it. Our first project was in groups to create a newsreel style video explaining to the public that America had dropped an atomic bomb on Japan. With this mini project our group had lots of great ideas and a good idea of what we wanted to accomplish however the final result didn’t match up with what any of us wanted it to be. Here is our newsreel:

The next project we did was a character card of someone who worked on the Manhattan Project. To gain some knowledge of the workers behind the bomb we were given an iOS game that took you through Los Alamos and showed us what living there was like. If you would like to check out the game, you can download it here.

For the character card I chose to research Richard Feynman. We were given a template from our teachers and told what we could and could not change about it. The biggest requirement was “DON’T CHANGE TEXT COLOUR!” Here is my character card on Richard Feynman:

Now it was time to work on our final project for the unit, our History in 5 Video. We were put into groups of three, my group being Hannah and Mimi, and we were sent off to do our research. My group decided early on that we were all interested in looking into the secrecy and security of the project so we chose that as our topic.

As a class we then went down on our field study to the Hanford site so that we could learn more about our topics and also get interviews for our videos. My group was able to get two really good interviews with some of our tour docents. One of them had worked on the site during the Cold War, and the other was the local historian and the reporter for the site during the Cold War. If you would like to read more about our trip to Hanford you can read about it here.

When we got back is was time to edit the video. My group had lots of people who enjoy editing so it was more of a collaborative effort to edit this video than normal. Generally one person is selected as the editor and its just their job, but here we all did our parts. I put together the first draft and handed it off to Mimi and Hannah to revise and cut the video down. They were also able to add much more historic footage over the narrator which made the video much more interesting to watch. The final draft of our video is up at the top of this post, if you would like to watch where we started with our first draft you can watch it here:

Overall I found this to be an enjoyable project. Prior to this unit I didn’t really know very much about the development of the atomic bombs. My knowledge was pretty much limited to the fact that I knew America had dropped two bombs on Japan near the end of WWII. I found it fascinating to learn more about the process and the people who were involved in the Manhattan Project, and in particular was amazed by the efforts that were required to keep the project secret.