History Day

Students in grades 6-12 from around the western North Dakota will converge on the Dickinson State University campus one day in the spring timeframe to compete in History Day activities, which is part of National History Day.

National History Day is a yearlong education program that inspires students to study local history, and then challenges them to expand their thinking and apply knowledge of local events to the national or even worldwide scene. Participants choose a history topic related to the theme and then create performances, documentaries, papers or exhibits which they enter at the competition.

The local competition held at Dickinson State University gives participants the opportunity to advance to state or national levels of competition.

Inspired by one man's vision in 1974, David Van Tassel, professor of history at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, was concerned about the diminishing nature of history in the nation’s elementary and secondary schools. His idea was to have a local competition in Cleveland through which middle and high school students would present historical research in papers, exhibits, performances and documentaries and these products would be entered into a contest and evaluated by professional historians and educators. His idea grew into National History Day, reaching more than 700,000 children every year and providing 40,000 teachers with a vehicle to enhance teaching in classrooms around the country.

For more information on National History Day, please see their website at http://www.nationalhistoryday.org/.