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National Museum of Nuclear Science & History

Imagining Los Alamos

Subject:
Difficulty:
Los Alamos Boys Ranch School students playing hockey on Ashley Pond

 

Students read a book on the life of a young boy in Los Alamos and watch a film on the region’s history, and then are asked to write and draw about what they imagine the experience was like.

 

Materials:

 

Lesson 1: Picturing Los Alamos

Lesson 2: Writing Los Alamos

Assignment:

 

Lesson 1: Picturing Los Alamos

Read the book A Boy on the Hill by Raymond Bences Gonzalez, which tells the story of a boy growing up in Los Alamos in the 1930s when his father was the manager of the Ranch School Trading Post. Imagine what the mesa looked like during that period. Draw a picture of what the area around the pond and Fuller Lodge might have looked like.  Show pictures from the Ranch School days to compare to their pictures.

 

Lesson 2: Writing Los Alamos

Show the Atomic Heritage Foundation’s film “A Sense of Place.” Write about what an average day would have been like if you had lived at the Ranch School.  Play some games or do an outdoor science lesson as they might have done at the Ranch School.

 

Sample Project by Jillian Puckett