Last year’s Wilton High School History Club members, from left, Lizzy Lynch, Mary Lynch, Hana Previte, Isabel Saltzman, Claire Graham and club advisor Kenneth Dunaj, at the 2015 History Day in Connecticut.
More than 400 middle and high school students will reveal their Connecticut History Day (CHD) projects at the annual CHD Fairfield Regional Contest on Saturday, March 19 at Sacred Heart University, 5151 Park Avenue, Fairfield.
Throughout the morning, students representing the communities of Danbury, Fairfield, Greenwich, Redding, Shelton, Southbury, Stamford, Trumbull, Redding, Stratford, Weston, Westport and Wilton will present their projects to teams of volunteer judges who will determine which students will move on to the CHD State Contest in April. Those students will be revealed and honored at an awards ceremony scheduled for 2 p.m., where state Rep. Cristin McCarthy Vahey, state Rep. Brenda Kupchick and state Rep. Laura Devlin will be on hand to assist with the presentation of awards and to congratulate their student constituents.
Connecticut History Day is an affiliate of National History Day® (NHD), a year-long academic program where middle and high school students conduct research on historical topics of interest. These research-based projects are entered into Regional Contests, where the top student projects have the opportunity to advance to the CHD State Contest. Student researchers, who compete at either the middle or high school level, may choose to enter into one of five CHD categories as an individual or within a group: performance, website, research paper, documentary or exhibit.
While students may base their project on a historical topic of their choosing, it must connect to the 2016 NHD theme of exploration, encounter, exchange in history. Through CHD, students in grades 6-12 are able to learn critical thinking, problem solving, research and presentation skills, while also developing a sense of responsibility for involvement in the democratic process.
The CHD Fairfield Regional Contest is one of six regional contests in the state. Tony Andrade, a retired Fairfield County educator, is the Fairfield Regional Coordinator. These contests take place during the last week of February and throughout the month of March. Students placing in the top three spots in each category will move on to the CHD State Contest taking place on April 30 at Central Connecticut State University. The names of winning students from each regional contest will be posted to the CHD website, historydayct.org, the Monday following each contest.
Connecticut History Day is led by Connecticut’s Old State House in downtown Hartford, with support from the Connecticut League of History Organizations and Connecticut Humanities’ website, ConnecticutHistory.org. Major funding for CHD is provided by Connecticut Humanities. To learn more about Connecticut History Day visit historydayct.org, or follow CHD on Facebook and Twitter. The National History Day® website may be viewed at nhd.org.
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