Sarah's Story

I think I have gotten a lot out of ThinkQuest. When we first started and watched the Iris Still Blooms I thought I had just heard the whole story. Then we interviewed the Perdues. I thought the park had been wrong and they should have found another way to build it. I was relieved. I had been right, we could start our website now. But when Carolyn Reeder came, she had a different viewpoint, one I should have expected from a researcher. She said she liked the park, where it was and everything. She just wished that the people didn’t have to be displaced.

Now I was really getting confused. I had my thoughts that the park was wrong, plain and simple. The Perdues had pretty much the same idea. Then Carolyn Reeder, someone who researched the park to write Grandpa’s Mountain, said that she liked the park, just wished they didn’t have to move people the way they did. But I was going to get even more confused later on.

When we went to visit the Lamberts, we had a long drive to think about what to expect. I thought they might say something like Carolyn Reeder or the Perdues. They live close to the park and Mr. Lambert surely must have met some displaced people in order to write The Undying Past of Shenandoah National Park. So he might be like the Perdues. Or he might be like Carolyn Reeder because it was very handy for him to go up to Shenandoah National Park. But the Lamberts didnt have an opinion like Carolyn Reeder or the Perdues.

Coming home from the Lamberts brought a very troubled girl. The Lamberts proposed a very different idea than either the Perdues or Carolyn Reeder. Mr. Lambert said that the park was a grand adventure. Now I was majorly confused. I had three viewpoints besides mine and they were all different.

Now, since ThinkQuest is coming to an end, I think I have figured out what I think of the park. The Park has brought a lot of money into my state, Virginia. But it also left 460 families without a home. The Park did something wrong to do something right. It wasn’t black or white, right or wrong. It was shades of gray. ThinkQuest has made me think for myself. Now I don’t think what other people want me to think, I sort it out myself.

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