Huntington High School’s National History Day initiative is heating up. Projects started rolling in this week and many more are expected after students return from the mid-winter vacation. All Advanced Placement US History, AP World History and Global 9 Honors students participated this year. Several Regents level students have also developed projects.
“While our school competition is happening later than usual due to the hybrid schedule, we are eager to see what our students have been researching for the last few months, especially since it is a brand new theme this year,” said social studies teacher Lauren Desiderio, who coordinates the National History Day initiative. “We hope to send first, second and third place winners in each category to the virtual Long Island regional competition that is taking place in March.”
The initiative is a spearheaded by the high school’s National History Day club, which is led by Ally Kustera (co-president), Christopher Maichin (co-president), Emily Geller (vice president), Teddi Carnesi (treasurer), Cassidy Casabona (corresponding secretary), Emily Roberts (public relations), Hannah Roberts (historian) and administrative assistants Mary Grace Rorke, Emily Plachta and Allison Quinn.
“Together with the officers of the NHD club, we are trying to figure out how to create a virtual presentation that can be shared to the community announcing the winners in each respective category,” Mrs. Desiderio said. “The Long Island, state and national competitions will all be held virtually this year. The NHD national office has provided students with a very thorough guide on how they can submit individual and group performances this year as well as exhibits in a virtual format. Luckily, there isn't much of a change for our website, documentary and paper categories in this virtual format.”
The 2021 national theme is “Communication in History: The Key to Understanding.” Students typically conduct months of research to develop their projects, which are submitted in one of five formats: historical research papers, museum exhibits, video or computer generated documentaries, theatrical performances, and websites. Besides individual entries, all categories except papers can be completed by a group of up to five students.
“We can’t wait to see what our students have come up with as they have chosen a wide variety of topics such as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, Hairspray, Pablo Piscasso’s art, protest songs in the Vietnam War to carrier pigeons in World War II,” Mrs. Desiderio said
The National History Day club meets on Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. Interested in getting involved?
- Visit https://www.remind.com/join/nhd202020 to join the National History Day’s Remind.
- Join the club’s Google Classroom by entering code qyfdqcz.
- The club’s Instagram page is @nhdclub.
Huntington High School’s National History Day club is open to all students who are participating in the initiative. “We also hope to increase our participation in other research competitions such as the New York State Archives student research program,” Mrs. Desiderio said. “We’ve had a handful of students participate in this program in years past and we hope increase our participation this year.”
Contact Mrs. Desiderio (ldesiderio@hufsd.edu) for more information about the district’s National History Day program or to sponsor an award.