Thirty-One Students Heading to National History Day State Competition
On March 5, 2022, sixty-nine 6th, 7th, and 8th graders competed in the regional level of the National History Day competition with outstanding results. Students began work on their research projects in the fall and submitted them virtually at the end of February. The projects were evaluated by a team of judges primarily on their historical quality and secondly on the quality of the presentation. Students chose topics according to the theme “Debate and Diplomacy: Successes, Failures, Consequences.”
Birchwood students placed in every competition category, an impressive result. In the individual documentary category, Adharsh Narendrakumar placed first with his project on San Francisco’s mask mandates during the Spanish Flu of 1918. Ari Emam received an honorable mention for his Cuban Missile Crisis documentary. In the group documentaries, Jordan and Ben Miyares placed second, focusing on the Dayton Peace Agreement, and Siya Lakireddy and Aanya Lakireddy placed third with their documentary on the Montreal Protocol.
In the individual exhibit category, Jasmine Chen placed second with her project on the Pentagon Papers. Taking a first place award in the group exhibit category were Safa Bahadur and Sana Bahadur. Their project focused on the Cuyahoga River fire of 1969. Birchwood also had three honorable mentions in group exhibits: Ashton Khoury and Johnny Mulloy - Cuban Missile Crisis; Tarunika and Mariana - Dorothea Dix; Shivam Mahajan and Reeve Vincent- Prohibition. In the website category, Jonathan Samulak placed third with his individual website on Japanese internment. Birchwood swept the group website category. Placing first and focusing on the Native American occupation of Alcatraz were Ayat Jaffar, Joshua Chen, and Stephen Parrino. Leen Salem, Melanie Statsevych, and Catherine Yang placed second with their project on the Kent State shootings in 1970 and Ted Alten and Lorn Mahoney took third with their website on the Berlin Wall.
In the individual performance category, Isabella Bixler placed first for her presentation about the Supreme Court case of Graham v. Connor and Emerson Krauss placed third for his performance about the formation of Israel. With their group performance, Ishika Chand, Manya Raina, and Yara Salam placed first for their presentation about female spies in World War II. The final category with place finishers was the historical paper category. Areesha Nouman placed first for her paper on women’s suffrage and the abolitionist movement and Omar Elbadawy placed third with his paper on the debates between Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson in the early years of America.
In addition to the place finishers, numerous students also took home special prizes. The Early Settlers Association awards cash prizes for quality local projects. Earning these prizes were Brooke Gemechu, Melanie Statsevych, Leen Salem, Catherine Yang, Safa Bahadur, Sana Bahadur, and Bilaal Khan. The Friends of the Maltz Museum awarded their grand prize to Emerson Krauss and Omar Elbadawy earned first place for the Sons of the American Revolution Patriotism Award. Congratulations to all these prize winners and best wishes to the 31 place finishers as they prepare for the state competition on April 23, 2022.
