More than 1,200 students from Francis C. Hammond and George Washington middle school recently participated in the National History Day (NHD) Contest, presenting projects covering topics from everything from the Iran hostage crisis to the Salem Witch trials. The top two winners from each category will head to the Division V competition on March 3 to compete with students from Alexandria, Arlington, Fairfax, Falls Church and beyond.
While hundreds of middle school families witnessed the labor that our students poured into their NHD projects, most don’t get to see the array of fascinating projects that our students produce. Here is a glimpse into National History Day as shared by Hammond students:
Each year honors social studies students in grades six, seven and eight engage in a long-term research project as individuals or groups on historical topics of interest based on the NHD theme. This year’s theme was, “Conflict and Compromise in History.” Students worked on their projects from the end of September to late-January/early February.
NHD is an innovative curriculum framework through which students learn history by selecting topics of interest and engaging in long-term research projects. Students and teachers practice critical inquiry, asking questions of significance, time, and place that immerse students in their topic. Students conduct extensive primary and secondary research, analyze and interpret their sources and draw conclusions about their topics’ significance in history. Students present their work in original papers, exhibits, performances, websites, or documentaries at a culminating event at their respective schools.
Students presented their projects earlier this month. Many thanks to the 85 community members and staff who answered our call for volunteer judges and played an invaluable role in this fabulous learning process.
Congratulations to the following students who are headed to the Division V regional competition on March 3.
Francis C. Hammond Middle School
Group Documentary
- Sylvia Rahim, Petra Davis: Hamilton vs. Jefferson and Madison the compromise of 1790
Individual Documentary
- Ramla Adnan: Three Fifth Compromise
Individual Exhibit
- Aya Elmassuab: The Iran Hostage Crisis
- Travis Rowley: Pig War
Group Exhibit
- Sada Seman, Emma Toggia: The Blueprint of Women’s Rights-The Seneca Falls Convention and the Declaration of Sentiments
- Alaina Daisy, Aliyah Royster San Luis, Fatima Suliman: The Marshal Plan
Individual Performance
- Isabel Blackburn: Blood Segregation: How it Started, How it Ended
- Skyler Fox: The XYZ What?
Group Performance
- Olivia Kruse: Iranian Hostage Crisis
Group Website
- Michelle Andzie-Mensah, Nancy Dofour, and Sabrin Suleman: The Great Compromise
- Ismail Khalil, Jeffrey Ribera: Great Britain’s Plea For U.S. Aid
Individual Website
- Elizabeth Lo: Spilled Coffee: The case the impacted the tort reform debate
- Jackson Rowley: Berlin Airlift: Flying Above Conflict (advanced, but not competing)
Research Papers
- Sarah Al-Hadhrami: “Military Women” World War II
- Margaret Rocchio: Conflict and Compromise – Japanese American Internment Camps
- Katherine Bectel: Salem Witch Trials
George Washington Middle School
Group Documentary
- Ian McDonough and Adian Dullughan-Ripps: The Integration of Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas
- Sam Walker Barber and Ethan Wentzel: Teddy Roosevelt Saving Football
Individual Documentary
- Tanner Lewis: The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Greatest War that Somehow Never Happened
- Lucy Thomas: The Vietnam War: A Conflict and Compromise
Individual Exhibit
- Lucenna Salonga: Larry Itliong and the Filipino Farmworks
- Lucie Morton: The United Nations War against Systematic Discrimination–How International Pressure Caused South Africa’s System of Exhibit Apartheid to Collapse
- James Hunt: Line of Conflict
Group Exhibit
- Nolan Dawson, Bea Savarie, Kirra August: The First Opium War
Individual Performance
- Auburn Shepard: The Case pof Galileo Galilei: A Case for a Sun-Centered Universe
- Ava Tucker: The Henrietta Lacks Conflict; The View From a Cell
- Madeline Arnold: Conflict and Compromise in Women’s Voting Rights
Group Performance
- Hannah Kidd, Ilona Boehm-O’Conner, and Grace Metzler: The Marshall Plan
- Susan Crumbley and Amelia Vineys: Breaking Barriers: Women Take on New Roles in the Civil War
- Molly Hill and Anibel Dawson: Behind the Scenes of Executive Order 8802
Group Website
- Helen Cooper and Chris Bright: Conscientious Objectors: The Heroes Who Refused to Carry Weapons
- Maura Munson and Kaitlin Peters: Mommy, What Happens if the Bomb Drops?
Individual Website
- Leah Devendorf: Rosie the Riveter-When Compromise Leads to Conflict
- Liam Bodhi Arakawa: The Fights at Ground Zero
Research Papers
- Kim-Anh Nguyen Aslanian: The Death of Vincent Chin; How a Tribulation Began a Movement
- Rory Patterson: The Salem Witch Trials: Conflicts, Compromise, and Chaos in Colonial America; The Journal of Primrose Grey