National History Day Theme Announced for 2025

Huntington students have garnered Long Island, New York State and national honors in the National History Day initiative, which draws participation from all 50 states as well as from students in Washington, DC, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and international schools in South Korea, South Asia and China.

Some Huntington students are in the earliest stages of developing projects for the new school year’s competition. The 76 page theme book for the 2025 contest is posted on Huntington UFSD’s website.

The National History Day contest theme is designed to help students think of a topic from any aspect of local, regional, national, or world history. With this focus, they can begin to ask questions that their research will help them answer, including how their topic is significant in history.

“To continue the celebration of our 50th anniversary, National History Day’s 2025 theme will be ‘Rights & Responsibilities in History,’” according to the NHD website. “To study rights and responsibilities in history, we must ask questions: Who decides who has rights? Does everyone have the same rights? Who decides on the limits individuals should or should not have? Why? What led to establishing certain rights, and to whom were they given? How have people, governments, or institutions decided what parameters should be set to enforce responsibilities? How are such decisions justified? The key to this theme is addressing both rights and responsibilities. These are two powerful forces in history, but one does not work without the other.”

Huntington High School students developing projects for the 2025 contest will be joined in the initiative by sixth graders participating in the district’s SEARCH program and seventh and eighth graders in J. Taylor Finley Middle School’s Yorker Club.

Students will conduct months of research to create their projects, which will then be 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.

Huntington High School’s National History Day club promotes and sponsors the initiative. The organization is open to all students who are participating in the contest. Lauren Desiderio serves as the club’s faculty advisor and coordinates the NHD program across the district.

Finley’s Yorker Club and its faculty advisor, social studies teacher Jarrad Richter welcomes participation from all seventh and eighth graders. Students that love history will have a thoroughly enjoyable experience as a club member.

SEARCH teacher Jessica Risalvato will also be working with her students as they go about developing their projects. Past sixth grade entries have been nothing short of exceptional.

Huntington’s National History Day local competition is scheduled for Thursday, February 6 at 6:30 p.m. at the high school. The top finishers in each of the categories will advance to the Long Island regional finals in March at Hofstra University. State History Day will be held in late April in Cooperstown.

Huntington has enjoyed enormous success in the state contest. The national finals will be held in June at the University of Maryland, College Park.

For more information about this year’s National History Day initiative, contact the appropriate level advisor:

Huntington High School: Lauren Desiderio at ldesiderio@hufsd.edu

J. Taylor Finley Middle School: Jarrad Richter at jrichter@hufsd.edu

SEARCH sixth graders: Jessica Risalvato at jrisalvato@hufsd.edu