Process Paper
When we started looking for a topic for National History Day, one person in our group suggested looking at the book, The Bomb. Several of us read the book and decided that Robert Oppenheimer would be an interesting person to study. He also fit the theme of leadership and legacy.
We are friends and liked working as a group. We wanted to do something a little different and thought a website would be a good choice. We enjoy technology and knew we would enjoy working on building a web page. To build our website, we looked at the theme words and used that to organize our website.
To research our topic, we first started with the book, The Bomb. We then researched biographies of Robert Oppenheimer, many of which were from the web. We also wrote to individuals who were historians about the Manhattan Project, received several emails back, and interviewed an archivist at the Los Alamos Museum. We included these interviews and emails on our website. Two of us were able to go to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library to research with actual documents. We found additional information at our public library and local university library. Finally, we added videos and primary documents to our website.
The topic of Robert Oppenheimer relates to the theme of 'Leadership and Legacy in History' in several ways. We discovered that Robert Oppenheimer became in many people's opinion a great leader when he took over the Manhattan Project. He had a vision of how the project should be set up and the ability to communicate clearly with everyone from the lowest technicians to leading physicists. Oppenheimer made decisions that made the building of a theoretical model into an actual bomb possible. His legacy is a mixed one. Oppenheimer's success with his team of developing a nuclear bomb meant that thousands died but helped to end World War II saving many other lives. The introduction of the atomic bomb changed not only foreign policy but security as well. Now countries seek to develop their own atomic bombs and the threat of terrorists using nuclear weapons hangs over the world. Long term, Oppenheimer's legacy of opposition to the hydrogen bomb and possibility of being a Communist led to his loss of top-security clearance. He became a figure known as a victim of the Red Scare. Oppenheimer was a highly effective leader who left the world a controversial legacy.
When we started looking for a topic for National History Day, one person in our group suggested looking at the book, The Bomb. Several of us read the book and decided that Robert Oppenheimer would be an interesting person to study. He also fit the theme of leadership and legacy.
We are friends and liked working as a group. We wanted to do something a little different and thought a website would be a good choice. We enjoy technology and knew we would enjoy working on building a web page. To build our website, we looked at the theme words and used that to organize our website.
To research our topic, we first started with the book, The Bomb. We then researched biographies of Robert Oppenheimer, many of which were from the web. We also wrote to individuals who were historians about the Manhattan Project, received several emails back, and interviewed an archivist at the Los Alamos Museum. We included these interviews and emails on our website. Two of us were able to go to the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library to research with actual documents. We found additional information at our public library and local university library. Finally, we added videos and primary documents to our website.
The topic of Robert Oppenheimer relates to the theme of 'Leadership and Legacy in History' in several ways. We discovered that Robert Oppenheimer became in many people's opinion a great leader when he took over the Manhattan Project. He had a vision of how the project should be set up and the ability to communicate clearly with everyone from the lowest technicians to leading physicists. Oppenheimer made decisions that made the building of a theoretical model into an actual bomb possible. His legacy is a mixed one. Oppenheimer's success with his team of developing a nuclear bomb meant that thousands died but helped to end World War II saving many other lives. The introduction of the atomic bomb changed not only foreign policy but security as well. Now countries seek to develop their own atomic bombs and the threat of terrorists using nuclear weapons hangs over the world. Long term, Oppenheimer's legacy of opposition to the hydrogen bomb and possibility of being a Communist led to his loss of top-security clearance. He became a figure known as a victim of the Red Scare. Oppenheimer was a highly effective leader who left the world a controversial legacy.