The Separation of Powers: The Rights and Responsibilities of the Three Branches

Nataly Ccachainca Junior Division Individual Website

I was given a list of possible topics for History Day by my teachers and I marked down some possible topics for my project. I was constructing my website on the Lebensborn project but I still felt an urge to change it over to explain the separation of powers in the government, but I couldnt figure out a way to connect it to the History Day theme. Earlier in the year I was assigned a project for my History class to explain the separation of powers among the three branches and the US Constitution; I already had some experience writing about this topic and found it interesting. Then one night I figured that I could just explain the actual rights and responsibilities that each of the three branches were given. I immediately started my website over and chose a new theme for it. I started my research by looking for the transcript of the US Constitution online in the Library of Congress. Then I looked up some sources that I found for my past project on the separation of powers and I used those to put in my annotated bibliography. I went to the school library in search of some books relating to my topic. I found some on the US Constitution with the help of a friend and then checked them out. Also, I went online and found many images to put on my project. I decided that putting some videos into my project was a nice addition. I found some and integrated them in my website. Last year I made an exhibit for History Day and found it to be rather difficult, so this year I decided to take my project in a new direction and voted to construct a website. My first step was to make a page for everything I was to write about and to set up everything in its place. I started by writing about the Legislative Branch and then I wrote the Atmosphere pages. After that I inserted some images and videos into all my pages. I wrote about the Executive Branch and ended by writing The Judicial Branch page. My final step was to check over my writing for grammatical errors. My project is about the separation of powers listed in the Constitution, which was created in 1787. This was a new idea that changed everyones concept of a government. Everyone during that time was accustomed to having a king rule over them and to have no opinion in how they were treated. This type of government made them realize how much more power they actually had. In my project I decided to directly explain the rights and responsibilities that each branch has to fulfill. Its not just about being granted power, they must also assume the real amount of responsibility they are given. Besides, the whole purpose of this separation was to divide the powers equally and to prevent someone from having too much power.