U City Students Recognized for Taking Part in National History Day Competition

On Saturday, February 26^th, five Brittany Woods Middle School students and their teacher spent the day the University of Missouri - St, Louis campus as participants in the National History Day regional competition. 

This year’s theme was “Debate and Diplomacy in History: Successes, Failures, Consequences,” and students submitted projects including research papers, video documentaries, websites, original performance pieces, and exhibits based on this theme. Projects submitted by Brittany Woods students explored such diverse topics as cloning, animal abuse, the Brown vs. the Board of Education case, Galileo’s debate with the Catholic church, nature vs. nurture, and the future of the penny in our modern monetary system.  Students spent the morning defending their research papers, performing their original plays, and screening their documentaries before panels of judges.

The afternoon culminated with an awards ceremony, in which Brittany Woods student Andrew White was awarded a first place for his paper, “Heredity and Environment: How Do Children Grow Up?”  Andrew will be going on to represent our region as a delegate to the state competition at the University of Missouri – Columbia, on April 9^th.

According to its official website, the National History Day in Missouri Program is a yearlong history education program that encourages students in grade 6-12 to explore history and teaches them to understand historical issues, ideas, people and events.