Students move onto History Fair Sectionals

The juniors in U.S. History and U.S. History Honors participate in the Chicago Metro History Day fair, which doubles as their semester project.
Students could research anything that they wanted to do as long as it follows the current theme (this years theme being, exploration, expansion, and exchange in Chicago). Students could choose from making a museum exhibit, a website, an essay, or a documentary.
“We allow kids to do the paper if they want to do [it] by themselves, they can work with an exhibit, if they create a museum exhibit they can use two people, if they do a website they can also use two people, and then if they want to do a documentary they can use two people,” said History teacher Mr. Matthew Bellito.
Each different category requires a different set of guidelines that they students have to follow.
“A paper is supposed to be six pages, the documentary is supposed to be close to ten minutes, and the exhibit has certain guidelines about how high it can be and how wide it could be,” said Bellito.
The majority of students chose to do a museum exhibit, usually a poster board that visually shows what the project is about. People in past have also used a model display such as a tractor or a briefcase to display what their project is all about.
“I decided to research [Lithuanians in Chicago] because it’s part of my family, my culture, because we are Lithuanians,” said Aristidas Tankus (11)
Students get about five months to work on the project before the history fair begins. They get periodic check in dates to make sure that all the work isn’t done the day before the project is due. This is done so that way, students aren’t worried about meeting the requirements in a short period of time.
“To be honest, I was very surprised [that I won],” said Andrew Duros (11).
Twenty projects were selected from the school to move on to Sectionals. This means that they now have to present their projects to a group of judges and, if they win, move on to State.
“Me and my partner decide to put more ballerina’s on it. There was a few open spaces [on the poster] and we filled the spaces with them,” said Jawa Mineh (11).
Students are allowed to change certain aspects of their projects, including adding more detail, fixing images on the poster or website, and possibly changing some of their sources. The only thing a student is not allowed to change is their project entirely.
If and when the students win Sectionals, they move onto Sectionals. Moving onto Sectionals is a big deal, there is less competition but that doesn’t mean that it gets easier.
“About 33% of the projects we send to regionals have made it to Sectionals at UIC,” said Bellito.
For every sophomore who went to the History Fair in the library this year, they have to do the very same thing next year. Some helpful advice would be to, follow the deadlines, don’t get stuck behind in the workload, and pick people who you know are going to get the work done in a timely manner.
“You really only have a little amount of space. So you’ve got to do it and do it right and organize it well,” said Mrs. Pam Dircks, the U.S. History Honor Teacher.
Most people don’t get to have someone who is older than them to give them the well-needed advice for projects. Juniors were kind enough to say some things for the underclassman that could help them their junior year.

“Pick something that you like doing because if you pick something that you don’t want to research about, it’s going to be a long and boring, process, and you’re going to hate it,” said Mineh.