Howard County Students Advance to 2018 National History Day Competition

May 16th, 2018

Fourteen Howard County Public School System students advanced to the National History Day Competition after winning first or second place at the recent Statewide Maryland History Day Competition. These students competed against hundreds of students from school systems across the state after previously winning competitions at the school and county level. Students presented entries in five categories: exhibit, performance, multimedia documentary, research paper and website.

In addition to the students who are advancing to the national competition, two Howard County students won special awards, and Richard Malt, social studies teacher at Marriotts Ridge High School, was honored as Howard County’s History Day Teacher of the Year.

The National History Day Competition will be held at the University of Maryland, College Park, from June 10–14, 2018.

Mayfield Woods Middle School’s Sharvari Tirodkar advanced in the Junior Historical Papers category with “The Kashmir Conflict: Decades of Failed Compromises.”

In the Junior Individual Exhibits category, Anjali Vidyasagar from Mayfield Woods Middle School advanced thanks to “The Nullification Crisis: Precursor to the Civil War.”

Nithya Nuvvala of Bonnie Branch Middle School advanced In the Junior Individual Documentaries category with “The Conflict of Japanese Internment and the Insufficient Compromise to Internees.”

Mayfield Woods Middle School student Sofia Scherer’s “World War II: An Inadvertent Catalyst for Women’s Equality” took first place to advance in the Junior Individual Performances category.

Abihith Velumuri and Colin Wang from Burleigh Manor Middle School advanced in the Junior Group Websites category for “Colorado River Compact: Historical Lessons for Water Rights Management.”

Howard High School’s Jake Blum took first place in the Senior Group Documentaries category with his “On the Front Lines of Faith: Chaplains’ Reconciliation of Conflicting Roles in the Vietnam War.” Second place in the category went to Ece Fisgin and Christine Kim of River Hill High School and “The Radium Girls.”

In Senior Individual Performances, Marriotts Ridge High School student Anirudh Saxena’s “Stubbing Out the Cigarette: America’s Hundred Year War Against Smoking
School” took first place.

“Wicked Silence: The War Against the Weak; The North Carolina Eugenics Board,” by Hannah Chan, Phoebe Chan and Erik Mechtel from River Hill High School took second place in the Senior Group Performances category.

Reservoir High School’s Nishtha Gupta took second place to advance in the Senior Individual Websites category with “The Iran Hostage Crisis: The Breaking Point in US-Iran Relations.”

Virginia Wang of Marriotts Ridge High School won the Special Prize in Legal and Constitutional History for her “Executive Order 9066: The Unconstitutional Injustice of Japanese Americans” website.

Howard High School student Sierra Burns received the Major General John E. Morrison Award in Excellence and Innovation for her exhibit, “AC vs DC: The Conflict That Sparked an Electrical Compromise That Still Stands Today.”