About National History Day
National History Day (NHD) is a highly regarded academic organization for secondary school students. Across the nation each year, more than half a million students, encouraged by thousands of teachers, participate in the NHD contest. Students choose historical topics related to a theme and conduct extensive primary and secondary research through libraries, archives, museums, oral history interviews and historic sites. After analyzing and interpreting their sources and drawing conclusions about their topics’ significance in history, students present their work in original papers, websites, exhibits, performances and documentaries. These entries are entered into competitions during the spring at local, state and national levels, where they are evaluated by professional historians and by other educators. The program culminates in a national competition each June.
Southeastern Regional Competition Hosted at UW-Milwaukee
National Theme: Exploration, Encounter, Exchange in History
UW-Milwaukee will host the National History Day Southeastern Regional Competition on March 5, 2016, based on the national theme, ” Exploration, Encounter, Exchange in History.” Event entries are $8.00 each. For more information and to download entry forms, visit the History Day page on the Wisconsin Historical Society website.
There are six regional events in Wisconsin, and at least 10,000 students participate statewide on the secondary level to win a chance to compete at these regional events. UW-Milwaukee hosts the Southeastern Regional, which is the largest Wisconsin regional, on the first Saturday of March. Hundreds of student entrants from over 30 schools across Southeastern Wisconsin regularly participate each year. There are 80-90 judges (professors, graduate students, librarians et al.) who come as volunteers that day to judge the entrants and send the top three in each category on to the state event in Madison.
The State Coordinator for History Day, Sarah Fellon at the Wisconsin Historical Society, chairs the State Competition. Since 2001, Ellen Langill has chaired the Southeastern Regional on behalf of the UW-Milwaukee History Department.