Irvine Shines at National History Day Competition

Irvine’s Sierra Vista Middle School students, Frances Kroll and Michelle Kroll, received first-place honors in the Junior Group Documentary Category during the Kenneth E. Behring National History Day Contest, held from June 14 to 18 at the University of Maryland in College Park.  Their documentary was titled “Henry Ford: Driving America Into the Future,” and their teachers were Barbara Hall Jonathan Millers.

In the Junior Individual Exhibit category, Morgan Kopecky of Lakeside Middle School placed third with her submission, “Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Jon Pang was Morgan’s teacher. More than 500,000 elementary, middle and high school students from the U.S. and beyond take part in National History Day competitions at the local, state and national levels each year, conducting extensive research based on a yearly theme before submitting complex projects in the form of papers, exhibits, performances, websites and documentaries. School competitions are held in the winter, followed by county and state contests. In May, California’s National History Day event was held at William Jessup University in Rocklin, drawing more than 1,161 students from 25 counties. Fifteen of those students ultimately got the chance to bring their projects to the Kenneth E. Behring National History Day Contest. This year’s theme was “Leadership and Legacy in History.”