Forty-three Escalante Middle School students have qualified for a spot at this year’s Colorado State National History Day competition in Denver after receiving top honors at regionals for their interactive presentations on key moments of the past.
Regionals took place March 13 at Fort Lewis College, and students from Four Corners schools and districts, including Silverton and St. Columba Middle School, participated. Projects that placed in the top three in their respective categories qualified for the April 25 state competition at the University of Colorado, Denver.
This years’ Escalante student projects examined a wide reach of topics, including some that explored the lighter side of history and some that dealt in darker, more complex social issues.
Japanese internment, the Radium Girls, 9/11, Title IX, pushback against forced sterilization in Buck v. Bell and the Erin Brockovich case were examined alongside the invention of the World Wide Web, the scientific exploits of Lise Meitner, the rise of art therapy and the cultural impact of the Dogtown skateboarding movement, to name a few.
The projects are a mandatory part of each student’s history education at Escalante, said John Hise, longtime teacher and regional history day coordinator. He’s seen the projects change how kids view history time and again in his 30-plus years at the school.
“It’s not just about facts,” he said. “... It’s incumbent upon us as educators to figure out a way to support kids in actually engaging in history in a way that’s meaningful to them.”
Students were given the option to present their projects in the form of a historical paper, a visual exhibit presentation, a documentary, a website or a performance skit.
Students Jack Cavanaugh, Fred Clay, Eleanor Maguire and Riley Queen chose to present their research as a skit. The team covered Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel “The Jungle,” which exposed dangerous and unsafe meatpacking conditions in America's meat-processing industry that helped lead to federal food safety regulations.
Eleanor played the role of Sinclair, acting out the reporter’s investigative path and his interviews with factory employees. The rest of the group oscillated between other roles. The group won first place in the junior performance category at regionals.
“We chose this topic because we thought it really was important, because it actually impacted the country that we live in, and it impacts (things) all the way up to today,” Fred said. “... (Sinclair) never actually told the companies, like, ‘Hey, you can't do this.’ But by releasing what he found out, he was able to actually make some brilliant change, which … taught me how important that stuff can actually be – just telling the public what’s actually going on, how powerful that is.”
Student Sawyer Smith chose to present his research, which investigated early skateboarding subculture, in exhibit form. Rather than put together a traditional trifold poster, Sawyer opted to build a halfpipe model out of card stock that stood taller than him. He took home second place at regionals in the junior individual exhibit category, and another Escalante student, Macy Brown, took first for her research on the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup in the same category.
“A lot of sports today were heavily influenced by skateboarding, so it was a really influential sport,” Sawyer said.
Students said the complexity and scale of the topics they tackled, the emotional complexity of investigating more intense historical happenings, and the heavy focus on revision and word count throughout the process were challenging aspects of the assignment.
Several students – including June Housley and Addy Ramos, who looked into female scientist Lise Meitner and the underappreciation she faced in her field; Owen Larsen, Rush Mortimer and Graham Wendland, who investigated the rise of art therapy; and Mateo Spangler and Francis Schreiber, who covered the 1930 through 1940 Great Plains Dust Bowl – said history can teach people as much about the present as it can the past.
“We learn about history so mistakes are not repeated,” Francis said while discussing the environmental disaster he and Mateo covered for their project.
Francis’ great-great grandmother was at the center of the Dust Bowl, he said, making the project personal as well as educationally important. The team won second place at regionals in the junior group exhibit category.
Students Caroline Hirt and Audrey Ingle won first in the same category for their research on the Buck v. Bell case.
Hise said the role history plays on the future is something he hopes to instill in his students.
“To understand that the past lives in today is one of the most important things that we can teach a person,” he said. “Our job is not to judge the past but instead to use the past to judge our own present.”
epond@durangoherald.com
A previous version of this story erred in saying Ignacio School District participated at regionals. Incorrect information was given to the Herald.
