National History Day Process Paper

The topic my partner and I have based the National History Day Project on is the Mayan Calender system compared to the Hopi Indian Tribe system. The reason I liked this topic is because it is currently 2012 and so the the world ending is a huge controversy in society. I am very interested in the subject and wished to do deeper research on the predictions by not only the Ancient Civilization of the Mayans. I have recently discovered the Maya people are not the only people with these beliefs and so I have grown more fascinated.

The idea of basing our project on this topic was actually the first thing to cross my mind when we were informed of the project, so we decided it fit with everything this year. The research for this particular topic is very difficult because of the fact that the Mayans are such an ancient civilization so have very few primary sources. This is the main reason for including the more recent civilization of the Hopi Indian Tribe. I conducted my part of the research using the ABC Clio Database and other websites in which I was recommended.

It is definitely not easy to conduct this research which requires a lot of patience, smart searching and reliability. We managed to find perfect information to allow us to shine the theme across the topic. The presentation category we have chosen to use is the exhibit. The reason I wanted to use this category is because my partner and I do not work best with technology and are able to better portray information in a more old-fashioned matter. I believe this is the most efficient way to get our research across. We have felt very confident with our project from the beginning.

We are using a mid-sized poster board. Our creativeness works well with our topic and our research is sweet, short and to the point. Our project relates to the NHD theme of Revolution, Reform and Reaction because the ideas of the Hopi Indians coincides with those of the Mayans. This part relates to the Revolution portion of the theme. The topic relates to the reform section because it has been edited and is used today. The reaction part is how the people have reacted to the end of this system and the predictions made according to their astrological beliefs.