The Fall of The Berlin Wall
Valerie Hajek, Rachel Park, Anouck Dussaud
Junior Division, Website
All my group members find the fall of the Berlin Wall to be interesting, and one of the group member’s mom was in Berlin when the wall was torn down in 1989, so she was particularly interested in the topic. We had many possibilities for topics we wanted to research and were having a hard time deciding what to do, but we were running out of time to explore our possibilities, so we just picked one of our choices and went with it. The topic turned out to be the fall of the Berlin Wall. Immediately after deciding on a topic, we started conducting research by looking on different databases for basic information, using advanced google searches, and using different sites that offer collections of primary sources on different historical topics, such as a database of newspaper articles. Our school helped us a lot by offering different ways to research our topics and giving helpful websites, databases, and research tips. In the beginning, we all knew we were going to create a website. A website seemed very “cool” because it was more than what your normal project for a school assignment would be. We were used to making exhibits and documentaries, a performance was not appealing, and to be honest, writing a paper seemed plain boring. We decided a website was definitely the way to go. We started off spending four hours on a Sunday afternoon figuring out the different tricks on Weebly and getting the very basis of the website done. From there, we all worked on it almost completely individually on our own time. We talked about who would work on what section at school and over text. The National History Day topic is turning points in history, and the fall of the Berlin Wall is a turning point in history. It made the collapse of communism happen. The Berlin Wall symbolized the Iron Curtain and after the Berlin Wall came down, communist regimes couldn’t survive if all the people could leave the poor living conditions of the East, where communism existed, and travel to the West where conditions were better. The collapse of communism is the biggest turning point caused by the fall of the Berlin Wall, but the fall was also a huge turning point for the citizens of East and West Germany because they were finally allowed to see any friends and family they had on the other side after about thirty years of a wall separating them. In addition, East Germans were allowed to leave the bad conditions of East Germany and travel to the West where they could get better paying jobs, have more intellectual freedom, and have better consumer good quality and availability. Countries in Eastern Europe were able to establish democratic governments as well and Germany was re-united as one country. After finishing our project, we have found to appreciate the significance in history of our subject and we are glad we had chosen it as our project topic.
Valerie Hajek, Rachel Park, Anouck Dussaud
Junior Division, Website
All my group members find the fall of the Berlin Wall to be interesting, and one of the group member’s mom was in Berlin when the wall was torn down in 1989, so she was particularly interested in the topic. We had many possibilities for topics we wanted to research and were having a hard time deciding what to do, but we were running out of time to explore our possibilities, so we just picked one of our choices and went with it. The topic turned out to be the fall of the Berlin Wall. Immediately after deciding on a topic, we started conducting research by looking on different databases for basic information, using advanced google searches, and using different sites that offer collections of primary sources on different historical topics, such as a database of newspaper articles. Our school helped us a lot by offering different ways to research our topics and giving helpful websites, databases, and research tips. In the beginning, we all knew we were going to create a website. A website seemed very “cool” because it was more than what your normal project for a school assignment would be. We were used to making exhibits and documentaries, a performance was not appealing, and to be honest, writing a paper seemed plain boring. We decided a website was definitely the way to go. We started off spending four hours on a Sunday afternoon figuring out the different tricks on Weebly and getting the very basis of the website done. From there, we all worked on it almost completely individually on our own time. We talked about who would work on what section at school and over text. The National History Day topic is turning points in history, and the fall of the Berlin Wall is a turning point in history. It made the collapse of communism happen. The Berlin Wall symbolized the Iron Curtain and after the Berlin Wall came down, communist regimes couldn’t survive if all the people could leave the poor living conditions of the East, where communism existed, and travel to the West where conditions were better. The collapse of communism is the biggest turning point caused by the fall of the Berlin Wall, but the fall was also a huge turning point for the citizens of East and West Germany because they were finally allowed to see any friends and family they had on the other side after about thirty years of a wall separating them. In addition, East Germans were allowed to leave the bad conditions of East Germany and travel to the West where they could get better paying jobs, have more intellectual freedom, and have better consumer good quality and availability. Countries in Eastern Europe were able to establish democratic governments as well and Germany was re-united as one country. After finishing our project, we have found to appreciate the significance in history of our subject and we are glad we had chosen it as our project topic.