Every year at VHHS, juniors in U.S. History classes each create a project for the History Fair.
“Juniors have been working on this project for over five months. They have to find around 15 sources, do note sheets on those sources, then put the final project together,” Amanda Carroll, American studies teacher, said.
The theme for the fair is chosen for broad application to world, national, or state history and its relevance to ancient or more recent past. This year, the theme was Rights and Responsibilities. Usually, students start working on the project halfway through the first semester, and the project is turned in a few weeks into the second semester.
More than 300 VHHS students participated in the history fair, and only 52 students have advanced to Regionals this year, which was held on March 1 at the University of Illinois Chicago.
Students were told if they advanced past Regionals, then they would head to Springfield on May 1 for State. If students make it past State, they move onto Nationals, which is held in Maryland over the summer. In the past, two students from our school have gone to nationals.
“I put in my best effort through the whole project. I didn’t plan on going to regionals. I never thought I would be someone selected to move on,” Esther Mun (11), a History Fair advancer, said.
Mun’s project was a paper about Eliza Mary Mahoney, who was the first licensed African American nurse. She worked on this project by herself, but some other students did their project in pairs.
In addition to papers, other project styles included websites, poster boards and documentaries.
While teachers are available to provide support and help when needed through the project, it’s the students job to get all their information and make sure the project follows History Fair guidelines by the deadline.
Students were made aware very early on that the project is a heavily-weighted grade for the class and could be chosen to advance and compete against other schools.
“We were okay whether we advanced for the History Fair or not. Our main goal was to get a good grade, which we got, so no matter what happened, we still felt accomplished,” Margaret Harrison (11), another History Fair advancer, said.
Regardless of whether the students’ initial goal was to advance or not, they were still happy with their advancements and that their work paid off. Many wonder how their project was chosen.
“[Teachers] tend to focus on the [projects] that have the strongest argument and connection to the topic and theme,” Amanda Carroll said
Each student’s project was looked through carefully, then graded to make sure it followed a class rubric and the history fair guideline page. From there, teachers made selections for projects to move on.
(11) with their project at Regionals.
Ryley Bautista (11) and Harrison worked to create a poster board museum exhibit project called ‘Jackie Robinson: The Change’ highlighting him being the first African American baseball player in the MLB.
“It feels good to be done with [the project]. Creating our exhibit was fun because it allowed us to be creative while still doing an important research project for class,” Bautista said. “It was interesting because we were able to learn many new things we didn’t know before.”