Creativity on Display for National History Day Competition

Peck faculty members initially judge entries according to rubrics provided by the National History Day organization. Student projects that are selected to move on to a regional competition may ultimately progress to the National Contest at the University of Maryland at College Park.

 

Each year, the National History Day organization chooses a theme for the competition. According to the NHD website, the theme is chosen for the broad application to world, national, or state history, and its relevance to ancient history or to the more recent past. This year’s theme is Conflict and Compromise in History. The intentional selection of the theme for NHD is to provide an opportunity for students to push past the antiquated view of history as mere facts and dates and drill down into historical content to develop perspective and understanding.

 

Students begin working on projects in the fall, and with only rough guidance from faculty members, they choose their own topic and must exercise a variety of 21^st century skills to succeed: critical thinking, problem solving, research skills, public speaking, and self-confidence.

 

In the three years The Peck School has been involved in the competition, students have done extremely well with projects progressing to the National Contest for the past two years in a row.

 

This year, the following student projects have been selected to proceed to the regional event: