"Yellow Dirt offers readers a window into a dark chapter of modern history that still reverberates today. From the 1940s into the early twenty-first century, the United States knowingly used and discarded an entire tribe for the sake of atomic bombs. Secretly, during the days of the Manhattan Project and then in a frenzy during the Cold War, the government bought up all the uranium that could be mined from the hundreds of rich deposits entombed under...

"Human modification of the environment always carries a risk of accident and folly. Explore the causes and consequences of the Church Rock, New Mexico uranium mine disaster of 1979. Guided by compelling questions such as, "What led to this disaster?," "Who was impacted by it?," and "What changed in its aftermath?" the interdisciplinary content blends social studies and science. Ultimately, it pushes students to consider how humans can meet their need...

"On August 6, 1945, at 8:15 in the morning, an explosive charge of more than 15 kilotons fell on the city of Hiroshima. Tens of thousands of people were pulverized, and everything within four square miles was instantly destroyed. A deluge of flames and ash had just caused Japan's greatest trauma and changed the course of modern warfare and life on Earth forever. The world was horrified by the existence of the bomb--the first weapon of mass destruction....

"In the 1940s, the brightest minds of the United States and Nazi Germany raced to West Africa with a single mission: to secure the essential ingredient of the atomic bomb--and to make sure nobody saw them doing it. Albert Einstein told President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 that the world's only supply of uniquely high-quality uranium ore--the key ingredient for the atomic bomb--could be found in the Katanga province of the Belgian Congo at the Shinkolobwe...