The young men and women are probing into what their chosen figure did and what actions the individual did that changed the world. Who made the greatest contribution and why?

On May 6 and 7, 2009, more than 800 students from across Pennsylvania will assemble at Millersville University to report the results of their investigations of individuals whose actions have shaped our past and their present. Those whose investigations and reports best capture the spirit of their subject will then travel to College Park, Maryland in June 2009 to report their investigation to a national panel of judges!

The Army Heritage Center Foundation, the non-profit organization supporting the development of the Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, PA, is sponsoring the National History Day (NHD) in Pennsylvania competition for the second year.

The students’ investigations into the known and not-so-well known have taken them from their schools to local libraries to universities and special collections; information was also obtained from the internet. Many of them also made the time to go where the individual may have been – home, place of work, battlefield, or space.

All this probing was done to create a project for a national program that encourages students to document, analyze and interpret. National History Day encourages students—home school, public and private—in grades 6 through 12 to become subject matter experts within a selected theme. The subjects for investigation this year are varied and range from the well-known’s like Benjamin Franklin, Coco Chanel, Spartacus, Henry VIII, Rosa Parks and Shakespeare to the more obscure individuals such as Nikolaus Otto (19th century German inventor of the internal combustion engine), Dame Cicely Saunders (founder of the modern hospice who started a worldwide movement to provide compassionate care for the dying), Joseph Rosenthal (Pulitzer Prize recipient for his WWII “Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” photograph) and Sarah Winnemucca (first Native American woman to secure a copyright and to publish in the English language).

Working across academic disciplines, the students have taken their research and developed arguments to defend their positions. They have then created projects, written papers with annotated bibliographies, or in teams of 2 to 5, created exhibits, websites, performances or documentaries. In March and April of this year they presented their projects to volunteer judges at the local and regional levels.

These students, who will travel to Millersville, have been sent forward to the state competition by local and regional evaluators. They, along with their teachers and families, will convene at Millersville University in hopes of advancing to the national competition in mid-June at the University of Maryland in College Park. The preliminary round will be held on Wednesday, May 6. The top 6 in each category and division will have their projects evaluated for runoffs to determine final rankings on Thursday, May 7. The first and second place entries as well as though deserving honorable mention will be named later in the day at an awards ceremony. First and second place students will advance to the national competition.

At the end of June, many of the students who studied individuals this year will immediately turn their efforts to uncovering the effects an idea, an invention, a change in a political or social institution had on the world today to create projects relevant to the 2009-2010 theme, “Innovation in History: Impact and Change.”

Contact: Lorraine Luciano
Education Director, AHCF and National History Day in PA State Coordinator
717-258-1102
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