ALBANY — How do you manage to compete with just your knowledge of history and culture?
Around 70 students from grades 6 to 12 across the Capital Region did – at the New York State Museum Saturday, as they entered historical papers, exhibit boards, documentaries, performances and websites in the annual Capital Region History Day competition.
Judges ranked projects on criteria such as historical accuracy, use of primary sources and relating to 2023’s theme: “Frontiers in History.” Winners will go on to compete at the statewide event Monday, April 24, in Cooperstown for a chance to represent New York in the national competition in June.
“It is a competition, but all the students are truly winners because they learn how to work as historians themselves by uncovering the stories of our shared past and presenting it publicly,” State Historian Devin Lander said in an email Saturday.
Exhibits included working light bulbs to demonstrate the innovation of Nikola Tesla and dioramas of the Boston Massacre.
But not all students entered exhibits. Shenendehowa junior Grace Cozzens, 17, created a website on the ethics and decision-making behind deploying the atomic bomb. Shenendehowa sophomore Samson Sheehan, 15, and junior Fletcher Sutton, 17, made a documentary on President John F. Kennedy and the mission to land humans on the moon.
“We thought about ‘final frontiers,’ what people call space,” Sutton explained.
Several Shenendehowa students entered as part of a class jointly taught by English teacher Heather Porter and history teacher Robert Rider at Shenendehowa High School. Porter said students have been working on the projects since October, conducting research, developing thesis statements, and developing their final presentations in the form of the contest entries.
“It’s beyond teaching history,” Rider said….
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