STUDENTS PHOEBE LANGWELL, ANNA GOODARD, Kameryn Reynolds and Isabel Farland researched the Civil Rights Movement for National History Day.
Students at View Ridge Middle School celebrated National History Day on Jan. 16, with a school-wide project fair and evening ceremony featuring “Rights and Responsibilities,” this year’s theme for the national competition.
Students selected a variety of topics including the Civil Rights Movement, the effects of ongoing drought on the Colorado River, Gay Rights, Concealed Carry laws and many others.
The National History Day project represents a significant amount of work both students and teachers, starting in early October with topic selection and research, and continuing with months of work until the day itself.
Students elect to work on a team or as individuals, producing project types including exhibits, websites, performances, documentaries and research papers.
The history teaching team at View Ridge implemented the National History Day project last year to offer students an intensive project focusing on history. This year, the staff required all students to attend an evening presentation where parents and community members could visit the school and speak with students about their projects.
“I’ve never done a history project like this before,” said Phillip Stryker, a seventh grader who researched John Muir, the poet responsible for inspiring Theodore Roosevelt to create the National Park System. “My favorite part was setting up my display. This project helped me be creative while also learning history.”
In order to fully involve the attending audience, students created elaborate project designs including dioramas to represent the events as they took place. Phoebe Langwell, Anna Goddard, Kameryn Reynolds, and Isabel Farland, all seventh graders, researched the Civil Rights Movement and created a lifelike model depicting how rallies took place throughout the United States.
“The era really changed American history, and we wanted to take our project a step forward to represent the time,” explained Goddard.
Working as a team enabled the students to produce their best work, “We all contributed equally and needed to learn to work with each other’s schedules to be as effective as possible,” said Reynolds.
Many different reasons factored into why students selected the project ideas they did.
“My uncles’ marriage in late September inspired me to choose gay rights as my topic,” explained Hailey Hughes, an eighth grader. “I did a lot of research into the topic and thought of the responsibilities of the people who were instrumental in establishing gay rights.”
Some students found no difficulty presenting to the scores of visitors roaming the packed gymnasium.
“I really enjoy presenting my project to everyone,” said Alex Trevino, an eighth grader who researched the effects of global climate change on the Colorado River. “I regularly attend trade shows to help my parents with their company, so presenting comes as second nature to me now.”
National History Day, a national event and competition, started in Cleveland, OH in 1974 when members of the history department at Case Western Reserve University decided to hold an event focusing on history with a process similar to a traditional science fair.
More information is available from the organization’s website: www.nhd.org.
