Students participate in History Day
Photo by CORY CHEN
by DOMINIQUE LIE
Students participating in the National History Day competition will compete March 12 county level at Azusa Pacific University.
The theme for this year’s competition is “Exploration, Exchange, and Encounter in Human History.” According to nhd.org, the themes chosen are designed to be broad to encourage an investigation of topics that range from local history to world history.
The 28 contestants, advised by Stephen Anderson and Michael Kim, have been preparing for the event since the start of the school year.
“We have a surprisingly large group this year. Many involved in other Schurr activities, such as speech, sports and journalism, have shown decided commitment working on their group and individual projects,” said Anderson.
After choosing a historical topic, students choose from five categories to present their projects: documentary, exhibit, paper, performance and website. Topics include “The Donner Party” and “The Jazz Age” through dramatization, “Armenian genocide” and “The San Gabriel Valley” via documentaries, websites on “Women in World War II” and exhibits dealing with “Werner Von Braun.”
“We are doing a dramatization on the history of jazz music, because we are all in jazz ensemble,” said Nicolas Lopez, senior. “I’m looking forward to winning, and seeing all the other groups. It’s a pleasure to see all the other projects, since they worked as hard as we did.”
Students work individually or in groups of no more than five students. Competitors present research projects to historians and educators who judge them.
“Although I’m really nervous about competing, I’m also looking forward to the competition and the feedback that I’ll get to help me improve for the next History Day,” said Ella Dario, sophomore.