World War One and National History Day, Part I

"Wilhelm the Second, King George the Fifth, and Czar Nicholas the Second: 
the Conflict of Compromised Cousins."

National History Day (NHD) is a nonprofit educational organization that promotes the teaching and learning of history in middle and high schools around the world through a variety of programs for teachers and students.

The National History Day Contest is NHD's biggest program. Established in 1974, the National History Day Contest encourages more than half a million middle and high school students around the world to conduct original research on historical topics of interest.

For the contest, students in grades 6–12 present projects at the local and affiliate levels. The students create entries as an individual, or a group, in one of five categories: Documentary, Exhibit, Paper, Performance, or Website.

The contests is huge—it takes place in all fifty states; Washington, DC; Puerto Rico; Guam; American Samoa; South Korea; China; South Asia; and Central America. Students first show their projects at the local level. Then they compete in a series of regional contests, with top entries advancing to state/affiliate contests. The top two entries in each category and division are invited to compete at the national-level Kenneth E. Behring National History Day Contest at the University of Maryland at College Park.

National History Day started as a local program in Cleveland, Ohio, headed by Dr. David Van Tassell, a history professor at Case Western Reserve University. It grew from 129 students in 1974 to over 500,000 students in 48 states in 1991 and 700,000 students and 40,000 teachers in 2001.

This year's National History Day Contest was special for the World War I Centennial because, for the second year in a row, the Centennial Commission able to sponsor special prizes for student projects on the theme of World War I.

The World War I prize is awarded to an outstanding entry in both the junior and senior divisions that documents and analyzes a significant aspect of World War I, clearly demonstrating historical relevance to the theme of World War I. 

The Winning Team in Mufti

Roads to the Great War will be honoring the two WWI winning teams. In this posting we honor the Junior Group winners.  Colin Bradshaw, Lamont Tueller, and Lorenzo Palmer, who presented Kaiser "Wilhelm the Second, King George the Fifth, and Czar Nicholas the Second: the Conflict of Compromised Cousins." They are students at the Laie Elementary School in Laie, Hawaii. Their advisor-teacher for the competition was Colleen Spring.

Here's a link to the 10-minute video of their award-winning performance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhR8RJKnGBI&authuser=1

We will be presenting information on the Senior Group award winners in a future article.

Sources: Families and Supporters of the Team and United States World War One Centennial Commission