Process Paper - The Steamboat: A Steamy Turning Point
How was the Steamboat a turning point in history?
Group Members: Akash Advaney, Chris Chen, Gene Lee, Haejin Park, Rahiq Rafeeq (Mohamed)
Senior Division Group Website
How we chose our topic:
During our class period in Social Science, we were given the opportunity to select our topic. For a week, we took advantage of our class time and researched multiple topics until one caught our eyes, the Steamboat. At the time, we felt that this topic was not discussed much during our generation, so we thought, “Why not?” When we selected the steamboat as a topic, we felt that this would be atypical for us to learn and that this topic could possibly interest the judges as well, particularly because of the Clermont's crucial role in New York's history. From the excitement of selecting our topic, we carried that momentum towards our research. Subsequently did we know that the Steamboat was an immense topic, dedicated to the history of the United States.
How we conducted our research:
For our research we went through a handful of websites, containing primary and secondary sources, in order to conduct our project. In our school we have access to computers and a wonderful library to start researching our topic, the Steamboat. First, we started at our library and took advantage of our librarians and their plentiful knowledge of research. Each member of the group took their roles into researching what was needed and missing in our project. We each had a fair share of research, to provide teamwork and efficiency for our group. In fact, our accumulated research was so massive; we had to cut excessive information out, as to reach the word limit. Overall our research was helpful in the making of our website and it was truly reflective of the amount of time and effort we all had put in.
How we selected our presentation category:
We selected our presentation category by what interested us. We believed that projecting our research through a website would be more intriguing to do than the other categories as it would be fun and challenging to create and interact with. Also, the steamboat topic contains numerous videos, songs, and pictures associated with it, so the choice of a project involving multimedia was a natural one.
How our project relates to the theme:
Our main idea for this project is to capture the essence of the theme, which is none other than, “turning points in history.” So we believed in our topic, the steamboat, as being very relevant to the theme, as this truly marked an era of achievement, advancement, modernization (technology), and impacted the lives during that time period until now. Due to the steamboat, river navigation became quick and efficient. There is no denying that the steamboat was truly revolutionary for trade and business. Westward expansion was encouraged because of the steamboat's speed and trade between states flourished. It also provided greater inland commerce, which strengthened the United States’ economy and created a stronger alliance of states as they may become more economically interdependent.
WORD COUNT: 483