For the NHD project we decided on our topic, Theodore Roosevelt: Leading the Charge to Build the Panama Canal, because it was a topic that we have not yet learned about in history and we wanted to expand upon our knowledge of America by researching this topic. Another factor that led us to choose our topic was that Theodore Roosevelt is one of the most well-regarded presidents and also one of our group’s favorite presidents. Also our group was curious to find out how the Panama Canal came to be, how it was constructed, and who made the “push” to get the whole project going. The last reason why we chose this topic is because the Panama Canal created a convenient route through the Americas traveling by water, previously ships had to take much longer paths, going over North America, or under South America.
Our group took a very basic approach on how we conducted our research. We started off by just searching the topic, Theodore Roosevelt: Leading the Charge to Build the Panama Canal, and looking at the most relevant articles with the endings of “.org” or “.gov”, first, but as you can see in our bibliography we also used some articles with the ending, “.com”. After our original search of the exact title of the topic as shown in the NHD packet we discovered that search something like “Theodore Roosevelt Panama Canal” would come up with much more results, because it is not as narrow or a search. We also took to the research by looking up Theodore Roosevelt by itself and Panama Canal by itself to get more background information on them both. Originally, we were to do a poster board instead of a website, there were a few factors that led to us changing our mind on which style of presentation we were going to do. The first reason why we decided to change our type of presentation was because we did not buy the poster board from Staples. Another reason why we switched our type of presentation is because it was free to do a website and it actually costs money to buy the poster board and all the decorations required to get a good grade on the NHD. Also we decided that it would be easier to do a website because we may not be able to meet up every day of the week, and with the website, we could both access it online at different places at the same time. Our NHD topic directly relates to this year’s theme, “Leadership and Legacy in History” in a few ways. One way our topic relates to this year’s NHD theme is that Theodore Roosevelt was the only leader of a country that was really pushing the construction of the Panama Canal, which relates to the leadership part of this year’s theme. Another way our topic, “Theodore Roosevelt:The Charge to Build the Panama Canal”,relates to this year’s theme is that the Panama Canal is the most convenient way through the Americas by water still today, which is an example of the legacy portion of the theme, because the Panama Canal has, no doubt, left a legacy on many things such as sea trade, sea travel and much more. |