Hundreds of students vie on History Day
Hundreds of students descended upon the University of Maryland in Baltimore County to showcase their projects for Maryland History Day, which was held in person for the first time since the COVID19 pandemic hit.
“We are thrilled to bring back an in-person component to our Maryland History Day State Contest,” said Sarah Weissman, Maryland Humanities communications specialist.
“While our hiatus was necessary, there is something so unique about the energy of all these students gathering here to celebrate history and showing off a year’s worth of work.”
Approximately 500 middle and high school students representing Baltimore City and 20 counties out of the 23 in Maryland gathered Saturday at the UMBC campus, accompanied by their parents for a full day of competition at the state level.
Maryland History Day, a program of Maryland Humanities, promotes critical thinking and develops skills in research and analysis, writing, and public speaking among participants. Students work solo or in small groups to create original works in five categories — documentaries, exhibits, performances, research papers or websites, exploring a breadth of historical topics.
This year’s theme is “Debate & Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences.” There were roughly 200 judges present.
Those who place during Saturday’s state contest will move to nationals, which traditionally is held at College Park in June.
“This contest is a culmination of an entire school year’s worth of historical research by students,” said Aaron Heinsman, director of advancement at Maryland Humanities, adding that there were some
“really sophisticated topics” this year.
“There was a performance about the conflict between trans women and feminists,” he said. “Pretty heavy-duty topic for a junior high or for middle school students to explore.”
Students at Saturday’s event like Ayodeji Adeshiyan, 12, and Donovan Stone, 13, both seventh-graders at Windy Hill Middle School in Calvert County, are already winners having progressed from district and first at their schools.
The boys are first-time participants and worked together on a project about The National Park Service.
“We chose it because we thought it was an interesting topic. We learned about it in social studies. And we wanted to learn more about the opposing viewpoints of the
national parks,” Ayodeji Adeshiyan said.
Environmentalists for example want to preserve it but others want to develop it, Donovan Stone said. “Nature is just, you can’t take it for granted.”
The two students had just finished presenting their project before noon. Ayodeji Adeshiyan rated their performance a 8.5 out of 10. Fathers Samson Adeshiyan and Sean Stone were happy and proud of their sons.
“They worked really, really hard,” Sean Stone said. “And it’s kind of nice to see the reward of the hard work they put in.”
“My son told me that they won at the school level, and I thought ‘Oh, wow, they must have something good,’ ” Samson Adeshiyan said. “They went to the county level, and now we’re here today.”
“This contest is a culmination of an entire school year’s worth of historical research by students. There was a performance about the conflict between trans women and feminists. Pretty heavy-duty topic for a junior high or for middle school students to explore.” —Aaron Heinsman, director of advancement at Maryland Humanities