Teddy Roosevelt, Monsanto and witch hunts were only a few of the topics covered in projects for this year’s Haines School History Day.
Middle school students in Lisa Andriesen’s social studies classes put together websites, exhibits, documentaries and papers for judging this month. History day is a national and international competition where students create research projects on specific themes.
This year’s theme was “Conflict and Compromise in History.” Twenty entries were reviewed by four local judges and assigned achievement awards, third, second and first place in six different categories.
“(Students) had a lot of great comments from the judges. The judges really enjoyed the projects and said they were really high caliber,” Andriesen said.
Andriesen wanted her students to hone their writing skills by letting the historic figures’ stories come to life with quotes, letters and autobiographies. She said the history day projects were a great opportunity for students to become “thinkers of history.” They learned research skills like accessing educational databases and professional journals. Students also analyzed how their project topics impacted history.
“I told them try to be an expert on the topic but to go beyond it and analyze, what does this mean and why is this important? Why do we need to know about this? How did it change things, and how did it impact society and how people are?” Andriesen said.
Haines participates in the national competition every other year. The first and second place projects in each category will be entered digitally in state competition in late March. First and second place winners will move on to nationals in Washington D.C. in June. The projects are available to view in the Haines Sheldon Museum gallery through Friday, Feb. 23.
The winners in each category are as follows:
Individual Exhibit: Achievement – Caleb Holm, “The War that Nobody Won: The Conflict in Korea that led to the Compromise of the Armistice”; Third – Jaqai Harris, “Battle in Trade”; Second – David Strong, “Teddy Roosevelt Tackles Football”; First – Jacob Weerashinge, “Wrecks at Sea Bring Lighthouse to Be.”
Group Exhibit: Third – Luke Davis and Eric Gilham, “Take Off the Gloves: Conflict Between East and West”; Second – Alison Benda and Malia Jorgensen-Geise, “Not Enough Room for Them All: Lifeboat Disaster of a Luxury Liner”; First – Aubrey Cook and Willow Oakley, “Stonewall: Breaking Down the Wall for Gay Rights.”
Individual Website: Achievement – Trygve Bakke, “The Pullman Strike of 1894”; Achievement – Logan Borcik, “Germany’s Fate: The Potsdam Conference”; Third – Arik Miller, “Monsanto Tackles Mother Nature”; Second- Sally Chapell, “The Whistleblower: How the Pentagon Papers Caused Conflict”; First – Grace Long-Godinez, “Right Under their Noses.”
Group Website: Achievement – Natalie Jobbins and Sadie Anderson, “Witch Hunt: The Conflict and Consequence of the Salem Witch Trials”; Achievement – Phoenix Jacobsen and Holden Fontenot, “Kicking Around Political Conflict”; Achievement – Nora Prisciandaro and MacKenzy Dryden, “An Oily Tragedy in Alaska: The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill”; Third – Kai Dixon and Zander Willard, “Road to Getting Art Returned”; Second – Sophia Cunningham and Natalie Crager, “Mirandize Me: Conflict and Compromise of Individual Rights”; First – Taylor Ganey and Sanona Sundberg, “No Baby Today: Margaret Sanger’s Fight for Reproductive Rights.”
Individual Documentary: First – Gaelen Allen, “The Iron Giant: WWI Tanks that Crossed the Uncrossable.”
Paper: First – Avery Williamson, “Racing Against Racism: The Conflict and Compromise of the 1936 Nazi Olympics.