National History Day: teaches, prepares, inspires.

On the week of June 23 at the University of Maryland will be held the National History Day competition, a competition of the best historical exhibits, websites, videos, performances and more in the country. To this prestigious contest WS is sending five sophomores: Alyssa Debra, Danielle Hafer, Andy Chen, Alex Moree, and Patrick Kelly after the two group projects won first place in their categories in the state competition.

Every year, World History teacher Cathleen Boivin encourages her sophomore students to participate in the contest by assigning the entry as a year-long project, either to be completed individually or in a group. She and the other social studies teachers conducts a school-wide competition to send the top projects to the regional NHD competition. The top two entries in each category are then sent to the state-wide competition, which was held this year in Colonial Williamsburg.

Moree and Kelly worked as a group to create their website about the Congress of Vienna, which won first in Virginia. Their topic was inspired by the theme of the competition, Debate and Diplomacy in History, and they chose a to portray their information and research in an organized website.

“[The Congress of Vienna] is a really important part of diplomatic history,” said Moree.

Both were extremely surprised to find out they won first prize. They are now working on perfecting their project for the national competition in June.

The other group, made up of Debra, Hafer, and Chen, created an exhibit about Chinese, Italian, and Irish immigrants with the title “Rice, Potato, and Pasta into the Melting Pot?” The exhibit, which was split up according to each of the different immigrant populations, focused on their reasons for immigration, their struggles, and how they maintained their cultures, even influencing American culture today.

“We were disproving the melting pot theory,” said Hafer. “They all kept their identity.”

The group worked very hard at every step of the way, staying up until midnight the night before it was due and continuing to improve the project before Regionals and states. They are now excited and nervous for the national competition.

“We’ll hope for the best,” said Boivin. “These two groups worked really, really hard and continue to make their projects the best they can be.”