Nature vs.

Nurture: A Child Rearing Debate

Erika Foose & Tori Connolly

Junior

Group Website
One’s overall character is influenced by a mixture of hereditary and environmental factors.

Our topic was Nature vs. Nurture. This debate explained whether a person’s character is

developed by the environment that they are raised in or the genes that were inherited from their

parents. We decided on this debate as our History Day project multiple reasons, the most

important being that we were fascinated by the different opinions of all the people involved, as

well as the fact that there was no existing resolution. This debate was first brought to our

attention when we were reading through the History Day packet. We saw “Nature vs. Nurture-

Child Rearing Debated” in the list of sample topics. It sounded very captivating, so we began to

research it online. As we read about it, we realized that it was attention-grabbing and something

that we wanted to learn more about.

The research materials were obtained fairly easily. Most of our sources were found at the

Kutztown University library. In order to find these books, we went online to the library catalog

and searched for materials about our topic. A fair amount of books were available, so we asked

one of our parents, a student at Kutztown University, to drive to the university and check most of

them out for us. The rest of our resources were found by searching for the topic “Nature vs.

Nurture” on the Google search engine. One article, one video, and two biographies found here

were used because they had the scholarly information that we needed.

When choosing our presentation category, we originally wanted to make a display board,

but soon realized that it was too common and that it does not fit in with our skills. Ultimately, the

website was chosen because we both felt that it would fit our skills better and because we

thought that it would be an original and exiting way to present our project. We created our

project by reading through all of our research materials and taking notes on the important

information. We then created our website with the help of the National History Day website. We
took the notes and put them into our own words before adding them to our website. After that,

we added videos, pictures, and extra design for appeal.

Nature vs. Nurture was without a doubt related to the National History Day theme of

Debate and Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences. Nature vs. Nurture was an

argument surrounding different opinions and questions made by many people. Psychologists

have researched and tested many different theories in hopes to answer the questions or prove the

opinions. They have not yet come to a consensus which likely means that the matter will be

debated for many years to come. Also, the debate over Nature vs. Nurture first started during the

13th century and has been strongly argued for centuries without conclusion. This means that

Nature vs. Nurture is a historical debate, which fits the 2011 National History Day theme

perfectly.