Hi, welcome back to another blog post! Today I am going to be telling you about my constitution project, where I had to pick a research question, write a script, and then make it into a slideshow. I had an extremely good time making this project, and want to make similar projects in the future! My research question is why did it take so long for the government to abolish slavery. I was interested in this topic because I wanted to learn what would happen if the government abolished slavery earlier, and why it was the 13th amendment. I have also been interested in this topic for a long time. The purpose of this project was for us to learn about a specific topic related to our constitution unit: which is what we are studying in Social Studies.  

After I brainstormed a few research questions, I thought that my 3rd one was the best which is: why did it take so long to abolish slavery? After this, I had to research this topic.  Some resources I used were Liberty Kids, Brainpop, and Ducksters. When I had to research my brain when straight to Liberty Kids because I have already learned a lot from it. I found episode 140 very helpful as it gave very important details, which helped me make my script, leading to my slides. Not to my surprise, I got over ¾ of my research from Liberty Kids. It wasn’t about a common topic so it took a while to research and was pretty hard to get so much.

Making my script was probably the easiest part of the process because all I needed to do was to copy my script, and time it right. I also had to find different research: because some research was the same as the other, and I needed a lot. It annoyed me because I had these little errors, or needed a little more research. Timing may have taken a bit of time, but overall it was pretty easy and fun. 

However, the next step, making a slideshow and finding pictures was not so fun. At first, it seemed easy because I was copying the script to the slideshow. Then, I had to add pictures. It was super difficult to find the pictures I needed because they needed to be good pictures, of a specific topic. Also, I couldn’t take pictures that were copyrighted so there was less of a variety that I could choose from. 

The second to last step was to practice advancing the slides while saying the script. For this step, I found a lot of errors, fixed my timing, and kept practicing. After doing this a lot, I barely messed up. During this time period, I practiced a lot and changed some slides: to make them the best that they could be. This helped me: because the next step was to record my final project. 

After about 15-20 attempts, I had 4 that I really liked. I found it super annoying to keep repeating the same thing, over and over again: even if I slightly messed up. If somebody in my family accidentally said something or asked me a question, I would have to start over. After my brother helped me pick my best recording, I edited it so there was no access part at the end.  I did the recording over a span of 2 days because it was too much to handle at once. I had a great time doing this project and learned a lot from it.

I think the most challenging part of this was researching, but the most annoying part was probably recording it. I think the most challenging part was researching because I had a tough topic to research and I needed a lot, that was good, and was related but not repetitive. It was also a bit interesting learning about my topic, getting my questions answered, and finding information. I probably enjoyed the part after I finished recording the most because I was pretty proud of what the final result was, and it felt good to get the whole project over with: even though the process was really fun. I also enjoyed researching, because I got to learn a lot of new facts. One new fact that I learned one reason that slavery was abolished so late is the southern states wouldn’t agree to the constitution if the northern states abolished slavery so the northern states had to wait to abolish slavery. They would rather wait to abolish slavery than to watch their country suffer under the Articles of Confederation.

In conclusion, I had a great time in the process of making this project. I had some ups and downs, and I got frustrated sometimes: but I learned from my mistakes and had a great time. I was very proud of how quickly I made the project, and I learned a lot more than I expected. I am very excited to do more posts like these: and stay tuned for more blog posts!

Here’s the link to my final project!