The results are in…Irvine Unified middle and high school students will send the most National History Day projects to the state competition than any other Orange County school district. At the middle school level, 12 IUSD student projects, out of a possible 18 projects, will advance to the state competition. IUSD middle school students swept the website, documentary, and historical paper categories in both the individual and group entries. IUSD high school students also had an impressive finish with 17 out of 27 projects continuing to the state level, with IUSD sweeps of the documentary and historical paper categories for both the individual and group entries. Irvine student presentations included the senior group documentary “Dr. John Snow: Developing Modern Epidemiology”, a senior individual performance of the “Sacajawea Expedition,” a junior documentary “Exploring the Lemba Tribe: An Unlikely Journey of Exploration, Encounter, and Exchange”, and a junior website titled “The Apollo-Soyuz Mission.” During this year’s competition, more than 550 students from 38 schools produced original websites, papers, documentaries, performances and exhibits for the March 12 competition, which was followed by an award ceremony on Thursday, March 16. The top submissions from Orange County now head to the state finals, coming up in May. California’s highest-scoring projects will go on to compete in June at the Kenneth E. Behring National History Day Contest in Maryland. National History Day contests are held annually at the local, state and national levels, drawing half a million participants in grades four through 12. Working as individuals or in teams, students are tasked with conducting extensive research on a historical topic before submitting in-depth projects based on the year’s theme. The current theme is “Exploration, Encounter, Exchange in History.” For more information, visit the NHD-OC website.