News Release

Educator Concludes 2020 Teacher-Ranger-Teacher Experience

Oak Ridge Unit TRT Amanda Ragan

NPS

News Release Date: August 18, 2020

Contact: Christopher Derman, 423-569-9778

Amanda Ragan recently concluded her Teacher-Ranger-Teacher (TRT) experience at Manhattan Project NHP. Amanda is the Choral Director at Oak Ridge High School, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She worked as Manhattan Project’s TRT, where her main focus was to create a new educational resource for middle school and high school students that focused on the music of WWII and its importance to those of that era. Last year Manhattan Project NHP hosted a tennis court dance. Amanda created a new education resource focused on these tennis court dances. This resource includes background of the music played as well as a script that the park rangers can use. She also created a new lesson plan entitled “Dancing Your Blues Away,” which will allow students to gain a better understanding of why the Welfare and Recreation Department of the Manhattan Project considered it important to host regular social activities such as dances for Oak Ridge residents during WWII. 

“Often when you think of Oak Ridge and the Manhattan Project you automatically think of science, but there was so much more to the Oak Ridge experience during the war than that. Amanda Ragan brought a whole new perspective with her musical background. She was able to highlight the importance of music during WWII and how it became in integral part of daily life for those involved in the Manhattan Project. She was a great addition to the team and create a product the most certainly needed” said Education Specialist Daniel Banks. 

The TRT program is a professional development opportunity for K-12 teachers to spend the summer acquiring new skills in experiential learning through a program provided by a partnership between the National Park Service and the University of Colorado at Denver (CUD). The participants spend between four and six weeks in a National Park Service (NPS) unit developing a major educational project and participating in an online graduate course from CUD. The goal of the program is to train teachers in the resources and themes of the NPS so that they can return to their schools in the fall and incorporate their new skills into their classrooms.