John K. and Chris R.
Math
For part of our I-Search project we had to do a section on math. I chose to do a chart on how many Japanese people were kept in Internment camps. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt put 117,000 people of Japanese descent in Internment camps (http://www.english.und.ac.za/English1B/essay_history.htm). The Japanese people had to literally sleep in horse stalls. They were kept in secluded areas that had barbed wired around them. They were also were given little food to eat.
Another form of discrimination was the Immigration Act of 1924, it made it so Japanese people could only immigrate to American before 1924. The people that immigrated to America before 1924 were called the Issei. Discrimination and the need to stay together lead to the Issei to marry each other, thus making the first generation of all Japanese people that were all American citizens, the Nisei. For the same reasons their parents married each other the Nisei married each other, making the second Generation Japanese people that were all American citizens, the Sisei (http://www.kent.k12.wa.us/ KSD/SJ/Nikkei/The_Nisei.html).
Science
For part of our I-Search project we had to do a Science section. I chose to explain how a fission atom bomb works. The first atom bomb ever was a fission bomb. It used Uranium-235 as the element for the nuclear explosion. When a free neutron runs into the atom of a Uranium-235 atom, the atom will absorb the neutron then become very unstable, then split in half. The two smaller atoms (that came from the big atom) will emit gamma radiation when they try to settle into their new states. As the Uranium-235 atom split, it would also let two or three neutrons loose. This whole action of the atom splitting is called nuclear fission. In a fission bomb the extra neutrons that came from the atom would then go to another Uranium-235 atom, thus making another nuclear fission, this chain reaction is called supercriticality.
“An incredible amount of energy is released, in the form of heat and gamma radiation, when an atom splits. The energy released by a single fission is due to the fact that the fission products and the neutrons, together, weigh less than the original U-235 atom. The difference in weight is converted to energy at a rate governed by the equation e = m * c^2. A pound of highly enriched uranium as used in a nuclear bomb is equal to something on the order of a million gallons of gasoline. When you consider that a pound of uranium is smaller than a baseball and a million gallons of gasoline would fill a cube that is 50 feet per side (50 feet is as tall as a five-story building), you can get an idea of the amount of energy available in just a little bit of U-235. In order for these properties of U-235 to work, a sample of uranium must be enriched. Weapons-grade uranium is composed of at least 90-percent U-235.” (http://people.howstuffwo rks.com/nuclear-bomb3.htm).
In the bomb the fuel (the atoms) must be kept in separate sub-critical masses, to prevent the bomb from exploding before it is intended to. (http://people.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-bomb3.htm).
The first atom bomb, a fission bomb, was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. It completely annihilated Hiroshima. The atom bomb’s name was Little Boy. After the next atom bomb, a plutonium implosion atom bomb, was released on Nagasaki the Japanese surrendered. Fat Man, as this bomb was called was much more complicated than it’s little brother Little Boy. Nuclear technology has advanced a lot through the years, now they can fly from continent to continent. ( http://www.coopercougars.com/curriculum/manhattan/ )
I personally think that we shouldn’t use or develop nuclear weapons. For one reason, it would harm the national citizens of the country we were going to nuke, which goes against the International Code of War, which states that citizens can’t be harmed in a war. Another reason we shouldn’t use nuclear weapons is it would leave the whole area with radiation, making the whole area inhabitable. These are some reasons why I think people shouldn’t use nuclear bombs.
For the social Studies Section of the I-Search project I decided to find a map, the one shown above. The map shows Honolulu and parts of Pearl Harbor. I chose to find a map because Adam lives in Honolulu and saw the ship, which his father works on, being bombed. The map also shows Chinatown, Honolulu, which is where his new friend Davie lives. Finally, the map is a current map and actually shows the USS Arizona memorial. This is the ship that led Adam’s father to move to Honolulu in the first place, because the Navy recruited him to the ship.