Twenty seven students representing PVS competed in Nashville on April 12 after having won 1st or 2nd Place in the regional West Tennessee National History Day Competition that was held at the University of Memphis. PVS students won more than half of the awards for the projects going to State and PVS is the only school in West Tennessee that had students going to state from all five categories (Historical Paper, Documentary, Exhibit, Performance, and Website).
National History Day is a prestigious competition in which students undertake extensive research using primary and secondary sources on an annual theme. This year’s theme was “Triumph and Tragedy in History.” Students made presentations through exhibits, historical papers, performances, documentaries or websites. In the competition the students presented their research before a panel of judges and were graded on the historical quality of their research, their ability to demonstrate the historical significance of their topic, the clarity of their presentation and their use of research.
Five PVS projects won awards at the State level. PVS will have the third largest number of students from Tennessee that qualified for the national competition that will be held in June at the University of Maryland, just outside of Washington D.C. At the High School level, Sarah Kazi won first place in Tennessee for her exhibit on the Iran Hostage Crisis and Naisha Chowdhury and Manal Shala won 1st Place in the state for their group website entitled “Cracking Enigma: Tragic Cost of Triumph.” Wissal Boudouad placed 3rd in Tennessee for her website about Algeria’s fight against French Imperialism.
At the Middle School level, Zaheen Chowdhury won first place in Tennessee for her website entitled: “Pick Your Poison: The Triumph and Tragedy of DDT.” Nia Yusuf won 2nd Place for her Performance on the Tennessee Coal Creek War. Over 9,000 students participated in NHD in Tennessee this year and about 700 made it to the state level. Nationwide over 600,000 students participate in the competition. Last year a PVS student placed first in the nation for a paper on the Lebanese Civil War.
