History Fair Process Paper

David Brao, James Foye, Scotty Hughes

Group Website- Senior Division

We began our history fair process by taking into account the theme of a turning point in history. Our group brainstormed topics that would fit the mold of this theme. Some of the possible topics we came up with were the Space Race, Roosevelts New Deal, The Battle of Stalingrad, and Ronald Reagans presidency. We started to conduct some preliminary research on each of the topics and we decided on the topic that most interested us and best represented the theme of a turning point which was the Battle of Stalingrad. We started our research with sources from databases such as JSTOR and Google scholar that gave us the essential background knowledge we needed for our topic. We also began to familiarize ourselves with World War II and the events that led up to the events at Stalingrad. From this background knowledge, we then moved to more in-depth articles and journals that focused on specific aspects and effects of the Battle of Stalingrad itself. We researched the specifics of our topic through interpreting primary sources in databases, reading and analyzing in-depth descriptions of the battle, and gathering information from books we obtained from the local library. Initially, our group was leaning towards creating a display, but we started to dislike the idea of a display as the assembly could be expensive and tedious. We then decided on a website because we are all technologically savvy and thought that creating a website would best suit our individual skills. Creating a website is an entirely new medium from the usual school project, so the possibility of doing something different intrigued us. After we decided on a website we got directly to work by spending several hours playing around with the weebly site. Immediately after we felt comfortable with the site, we began to put the information gained from our research on the website. After

getting the initial ideas down, we started to get more creative with the different ways of presenting our topic like in a video, slideshow or embedded primary source. Our project connects to the NHD theme of turning points in history because Stalingrad is seen by many historians as the major turning point in WWII. Without the Russian victory at Stalingrad, it is possible that the Germans could have torn through the rest of Russia and eventually gone on to win the war. The Soviet victory at Stalingrad proved that Hitlers mighty German army could be stopped and gave Russia and many other allied nations hope that Germany could be defeated. If this battle had not occurred, Hitlers fascist dictatorship could have been allowed to control the world and exterminate many of the worlds peoples like the Jews. The Russian victory gave Russia a newfound confidence in itself and led the Russians to ask for help from the Americans by requesting a second front against Germany led by American troops. The Americans largely ignored Russian needs which led to tension that boiled over later in the Cold War.