Choosing the right topic is crucial for any project, and so when this year's theme, "Breaking Barriers," was released, we had a very specific agenda. We wanted a subject that would distinguish us from our competition and have a lot of information; we chose to examine the Corps of Discovery, captained by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, one of the most impactful events in history. This journey broke many barriers, giving us the capability to tailor the project to the research available.
In our quest to obtain credible and engaging information on the matter, we browsed various trustworthy websites such as History.com and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. It was on this site that we saw news articles from the early 1800s. Both the Washington National Intelligencer and The Western World had columns devoted to the Corps of Discovery and were very informative. It was in these searches that we discovered other places that contained more information about our topic, and as they were in driving distance. The first was the Litchfield Historical Society, where there was a considerable amount of images that visually aided our understanding of the expedition and brought the information of many other sources to life in front of eyes. The other place we went to was Yale University, for the libraries on campus. The Bass Library and the Sterling Memorial Library had so many relevant books, filling holes in our research, that we ended up checking out 15 volumes and gained pages upon pages of vital images and information.
We chose to create a website to present our information mainly because of how many visual aids we uncovered and because we were able to fit more information on a website than an exhibit. However, we had some difficulty with the software, such as embedding a video on the fur trade. The video states that it lasts three minutes, but all we could do was set it so that it starts and ends at customized times. Also, our group dynamics helped to accelerate our website creation, as we could split into four different groups to work on individual sections before getting together to meet. That is how we complete the majority of our project, in both research and writing, until it was ready for final edits, allowing us to showcase many different perspectives in our website.
The Corps of Discovery is responsible for breaking many barriers as per the theme. During their journey, they employed diplomacy with Natives, pioneered scientific discoveries, and conquered troublesome geographic features. They crossed the Mississippi River, surpassed the cultural bias against Native tribes, and stimulated America’s potential. The breaking of these barriers is hugely impactful in history. The area explored in this expedition led to an economic boom in the U.S. because the area granted America a surplus of inexpensive farmland, a river system rich in fur, and many other natural resources. These developments were the first steps in the road to becoming an international superpower.