Topic Selection
Students may use the “possible topics” list (see below) to get ideas, but they may also come up with their own topic. All topics must adhere to the National History Day 2012 Theme: Exploration, Encounter, Exchange in History. Students must submit the topic selection form (handed out in class... or downloadable below) to Mr. O'Mara, listing three topics they would be interested in researching.
If you cannot decide on a specific topic then just write down a general area of interests (like “Civil War” or “Women’s History” or “Native Americans”) and Mr. O'Mara will help you identify a good specific topic in that area.
Before you decide, look up your topic in a book (you could use a textbook or encyclopedia) or talk to teachers, librarians, or a parent about what might make a good topic. If you have no idea what you want to work on, arrange to see Mr. O'Mara after school for help.
If you are choosing from the possible topics list, choose 2 or 3 possibilities. If too many students choose the same topic as you they will be competing for the same books and resources. If too many students/groups choose to work on the same topic, the topic will be assigned by lottery. So have a back-up topic in case your first choice is an extremely popular topic.
*You will do a better job if you pick a topic you are really interested in, so give this serious and careful thought.
If you cannot decide on a specific topic then just write down a general area of interests (like “Civil War” or “Women’s History” or “Native Americans”) and Mr. O'Mara will help you identify a good specific topic in that area.
Before you decide, look up your topic in a book (you could use a textbook or encyclopedia) or talk to teachers, librarians, or a parent about what might make a good topic. If you have no idea what you want to work on, arrange to see Mr. O'Mara after school for help.
If you are choosing from the possible topics list, choose 2 or 3 possibilities. If too many students choose the same topic as you they will be competing for the same books and resources. If too many students/groups choose to work on the same topic, the topic will be assigned by lottery. So have a back-up topic in case your first choice is an extremely popular topic.
*You will do a better job if you pick a topic you are really interested in, so give this serious and careful thought.
2015_topic_selection_sheet.doc | |
File Size: | 25 kb |
File Type: | doc |
Some Possible Topics:
- The Berlin Airlift: Encountering Communism Exchanging Freedom for Despair The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge: Hitler’s Last Desperate Encounter
- Frederick Douglas: Exploring the meaning of the Declaration of Independence
- Encounter in the Gulf of Tonkin: Sparking the United States involvement in Vietnam
- The Lincoln Memorial: A place to Explore and Exchange Ideas on the Meaning of Democracy
- The Challenger: Exploring Space, Exchanging Ideas, Encountering Disaster
- The Underground Railroad
- Cuban Missile Crisis
- Exploring a Cure for Polio a Crippling Disease
- New Spain and the Comanche: Encounters, Missions, and Conquests
- The Spark that Ignited a Flame: China’s Explosion into Gunpowder
- Roger Williams: The Exploration to Establish Rhode Island and Provide Religious Tolerance
- Mansa Musa: Exploring Africa
- Encounter and Exchange of Religious Ideas between Puritans and Native Americans in New England
- Jesuit Missionary Matteo Ricci: Italy and China Exchange Philosophy and Astronomy
- Catherine the Great’s Encounters with Voltaire and the Enlightenment
- Commodore Matthew Perry and Exchange with Japan
- The Exchange of Disease: Encounters between Europeans and Native Americans in the Colonial Era
- Catherine of Siena and Gregory XI: The Exchange that Returned the Church to Rome
- James Cook and the European Encounter with Oceania
- How the Encounter of the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair Led to the War of 1812
- Venice 1348: A Global Encounter, a Deadly Exchange
- Exploration and Ice: Encountering the North Pole
- The Silk Road and Cultural Exchange
- Encountering New Spain: Manifest Destiny and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
- Exploring the Galapagos: Charles Darwin and the Theory of Evolution
- American Missionaries, China, and Religious Encounters
- Brigham Young, Mormonism, and Westward Expansion
- Ada Lovelace: Exploring Computer Programming in 1840s England
- Galileo: Exploring the Universe, Encountering Resistance
- Athens and Sparta: Military Encounter and Exchange
- Exploring the Nation: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
- Rudolf Roessler: The Allies’ Exchange with an Undercover German Decoder
- An Encounter with Fanaticism: John Doyle Lee and the Arkansas Mountain Meadows Massacre
- Exploring Disease: Jonas Salk and the Polio Vaccine
- The New York Stock Exchange: Money as Power
- Margaret Mead: Exploring Human Development
- Diplomatic Encounter: The SALT Talks
- Exchange between France and the United States: The Louisiana Purchase
- Exploring African-American Culture: The Harlem Renaissance
- Intimate Exchange: Abigail and John Adam
- Expanding the Boundaries of Dance: Martha Graham
- Rosalind Franklin: Exploring the Human Genome, Encountering Prejudice
- Exploring New Technologies: Andrew Carnegie’s Steel Empire
- Exploring America: Immigration
- Nelson Mandela’s Encounters with Aparthei
- Exploring an Empire: Hammurabi’s Expansion of Mesopotamia
- Patterns of Exploration and Encounter: French Jesuits in Canada
- Turkey and the Armenian Genocide: a Violent Encounter of Religious Difference on Close Borders
- The Artistic Exploration: Bierstadt and Moran’s Journey and the Creation of Yellowstone National Park
- The Zimmermann Telegram: The Exchange that Broke Down American Isolationism
- Reynolds v. United States: The Encounter between Polygamy and Law
- Encounter in Little Rock: Desegregating Central High School
- Encountering Communism: The Creation of NATO
- Minersville School District v. Gobitis: When Idolatry Encounters Patriotism
- Exchanging Musical Performance for Morale: Captain Glenn Miller’s Contribution to World War II
- The Exchange between Congress and the Executive: Who Decides to Fight a War?
- The Iran-Contra Affair and the Controversial Exchange of Hostages for Arms
- Waco: The Deadly Encounter between the Branch Dravidians and the FBI
- Apollo 13: Exploration in Space
- Pop Art: The Exchange of Consumerism and Culture
- Impressment: The Unwanted Exchange between Great Britain and the United States
- Encountering a New Religion: Spanish Catholic Missionaries in the Americas
- World War II War Brides: The Exchange of Cultures
- Peace of Westphalia: The Exchange that Ended the Thirty Years War
- Roanoke: When Exploration, Encounter, and Exchange Went Terribly Wrong
- Encountering a New Society: The Idea of Republican Motherhood
- The Sinn Féin Party and their Exploration of Irish Independence
- The Monroe Doctrine: How Isolationism Impacted the Exploration, Encounters, and Exchanges of a New Nation
- Gibbons v. Ogden: Steamboat Encounters and Exploration of the Commerce Clause
- Dorothea Dix: Exploring the Injustices for Herself to Promote Institutional Reform
- The Marshall Plan: Rebuilding Europe’s Economy through Exchange
- Exploring their Rights and Encountering Change: Women of the 1920s
- Disproportionate Exchange: Slaves and the Triangle Trade
- Political Exchange: Jimmy Carter and the Camp David Accords
- The Berlin Conference: Colonization and Exploration of Africa
- Encountering Two Worlds at the Berlin Wall
- Zheng He: How China’s Brief Period of Exploration Led to Centuries of Isolationism
- 19th Amendment Suffragettes: Exploring New Methods of Protest