National History Day

 D.C. Everest has participated in the  National History Day Program for the past twenty years. This program promotes good educational practice in social studies classrooms. Students choose a topic related to an annual theme and become "historians" as they research the topic. Students learn history content but also learn many life skills that go along with researching and participating in the history fair and contests. Over the past five years the state of Wisconsin has worked hard at getting more and more students involved in this excellent program. Their website at Wisconsin National History Day is an excellent resource for teachers.  The two students shown above researched the Scopes Monkey Trial. As part of their research conducted many interviews and even visited Dayton, Tennessee. The girls made it to the national competition in Maryland and were finalists (top fourteen). Visit our website for more information on this exciting program. D.C. Everest History Day.

History Day Experiences

by Rebecca Jirik and Karina Jirik

The summer of 2012, we were lucky enough to travel to Washington, D.C. to participate in the National History Day Competition for our group performance about the Scopes “Monkey Trial”.  A great experience, it took a lot of hard work and looking for multiple sources in order to succeed, but we would recommend this great event to everyone.  History can really open peoples’ world and help them understand themselves.  History Day also makes people who participate in it better researchers and prepare them for a college education. 

When we were in Washington, D. C. we had the chance to meet people from the United States and all of the other countries/affiliations that participate in National History Day.  One of our highlights of NHD was the button trading with the other people.  We almost got all of the other states buttons.  We also enjoyed all of the sightseeing that is available in D.C.  Seeing the Washington, Lincoln, WWII memorials, and Arlington Cemetery were our favorite destinations.  It was also fun to meet new people and look at other presentations and exhibits.   We were really anxious to see if our names would be on the callback list, to see if we made it to the final round.  We were so nervous we didn’t believe that we had made it and had to take a picture of the list to make sure we weren’t imagining it! You have to work hard, persevere, and go with the flow.  We definitely had to go with the flow in Washington, D. C. because our set fell down in the middle of our last performance!

We had a wonderful time at National History Day.  We even made it to finals in Nationals, which means that we are in the top 14 in the country.  History day was very fun, and we are so glad we did it.  It is funny to think that we didn’t even want to compete in the first place!