<div style=”width: 480px; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; font-size: small;”><img src=”/cms/lib/TX01918331/Centricity/Domain/4/news-feb17-livinghistory.jpg” alt=”Spring Early College Academy student Nakiia Hudgens took first place in the Individual High School Exhibit category for her project, Comfort Women” /><br /> Spring Early College Academy student Nakiia Hudgens took first place in the Individual High School Exhibit category for her project, Comfort Women.</div>
<p>HOUSTON – Feb. 21, 2017 – More than 50 students, having represented their respective campuses in the Spring ISD Living History Fair on Feb. 2, are now on their way to the next stage of the competition, making their final preparations for the upcoming Lone Star College-Montgomery Regional History Day in March. As part of the History Day program sponsored by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), the regional event will in turn be followed by the statewide History Day competition in Austin. From there, a select group of winners will ultimately go on to represent Texas at the National History Day Contest this June in DC.</p>
<p>“Part of getting our students involved in the Living History Fair is giving them the opportunity to become more engaged in their learning and understanding of social studies,” said Kimberly Russell, Spring ISD secondary social studies director and event coordinator.</p>
<p>In discussing the program, Russell emphasized the benefits for those taking part. “When we think about developing 21st century learners – an important goal of our strategic plan, EVERY CHILD 2020 – we must consider those skills students need to be college and career ready,” she said. “Creating, communicating and collaborating – the kind of critical thinking skills that students will use throughout their lives – are exactly the kind of skills needed for a successful history fair project. Students have to use their higher-order thinking skills to demonstrate their knowledge.”</p>
<p>Student presentations – in a range of categories encompassing exhibits, written reports, websites, documentary films and live performances – were organized around the official theme for the 2016-17 school year, “Taking a Stand in History.” Selected by the organizers of the National History Day Contest, each year’s theme is chosen to encourage students to move beyond basic facts and develop greater historical perspective and understanding.</p>
<p>This year’s theme inspired a broad range of projects spanning both U.S. and world history. District students took on such topics as the Civil Rights Movement; the fight for women’s suffrage; Cubist art; Cesar Chavez; the Boxer Rebellion; Nelson Mandela; Pancho Villa; Frederick Douglass; the Whiskey Rebellion; Martin Luther King Jr.; the desegregation of U.S. professional baseball; and the Pakistani-born Nobel Prize laureate and women’s education advocate Malala Yousafzai.</p>
<p>Campus social studies teachers provided guidance and steered students toward helpful resources, but all preparations were ultimately the responsibility of the students themselves, who work either independently or in groups, according to their chosen project category.</p>
<p>“That’s usually how it happens – just something spontaneous that sparks their interest,” said Director of Elementary Social Studies Dr. Jennifer Warford. “They’ll start the research process, going to the school library, finding websites that relate to the project, and then just building up from there, making the project the best that it can be.”</p>
<p>According to information from the Texas State Historical Association, which helps sponsor and run the events at the regional and state level, up to 50,000 students from across Texas participate in the program each year, with the field narrowing as students progress up through the local, regional and state levels. In recent years, approximately 80 participants have ultimately gone on to represent the state at the National History Day Contest in the nation’s capital.</p>
<p>Spring Early College Academy student Nakiia Hudgens, who took first place for the district in the Individual High School Exhibit category, focused her project on Kim Hak-sun and the broader topic of “Comfort Women” in the years leading up to and during World War II, including the delicate historical issue of sexual slavery and its present-day geopolitical implications. “What got me excited about this topic,” Hudgens said, “was realizing, during my early research, that not many people knew about it. When I found out the things the Comfort Women had to go through – some for years at a time, and without choice – I felt like their stories needed to be heard.”</p>
<p>To appraise student projects and make the tough choices as to which entries would take first, second and third place in each category and proceed to the regional competition, judges were on hand from around the district. Ben Fox, a first-year geography and social studies teacher at Dekaney, expressed his admiration for students’ willingness to engage with difficult subject matter.</p>
<p>“Spring ISD has some very talented young people,” Fox said. “Several of the projects really stood out to me. For instance, the Malala exhibit – I mean, she’s an incredible figure, and to already consider her as a piece of history is amazing. It means our students are cognizant of the idea of history being made right now. It’s very impressive.”</p>
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