Left: Four Cook County Middle School students are heading to the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis on May 1 to compete in the state History Day competition. The students (L-R) Jessica Berg-Collman, Alex Jones (front), Megan Lehto, Joey Chmelik are standing standing in front of the award-winning display put together by Alex and Joey. Above: Alex Jones takes aim with a historic Brownie box camera, part of the history display he and Joey Chmelik submitted to regional competition.
Cook County Middle School students in Dorie Carlson and TJ Super’s eighth-grade classes immersed themselves in projects for history this winter, writing thesis papers and preparing displays for history presentations. Four CCMS students advanced to regional History Day competition at the University of Minnesota on March 6. Carlson said her students performed extremely well and Joey Chmelik, Alex Jones, Megan Lehto, and Jessica Berg-Collman are now waiting to take their historical show on the road—to state History Day competition at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis on May 1.
Joey Chmelik and Alex Jones worked together on their project entitled The Camera: Changing
How People View the World.
Their display includes photos of important moments in history—of a young Civil War soldier and the more recent Kent State University shooting. It also looks to the future with the development of the electron microscope and the Hubble telescope. Alex happily demonstrated how an additional visual aid—a Brownie box camera— works.
Asked if the History Day judges asked hard questions, Joey and Alex nodded vigorously. However, Alex said waiting for the judges was also hard. “We were way back in the corner, waiting and waiting,” said Alex. “I just wanted to get it over with.”
Alex also said one of the hardest parts of the project was taking the display apart to laminate it. Joey said it has been a great challenge keeping the information on the display board under 300 words. They are editing and re-writing for their presentation at state, so that will mean taking the display apart again.
Jessica Berg-Collman also attended the regional competition with her documentary on dog sledding. The theme was Innovation in
History: Impact and Change.
Jessica, who has sled dogs in her “Hot Dawg Kennel” researched and presented her information on dog sledding. Jessica said the regional competition judges were tough. “They kind of insulted me,” she said. “But it was good. They were coaching me on how to improve my documentary.”
Megan Lehto chose to enter her project as a website entitled Sputnik:
The Beginning of the Space Race,
which will be sent directly to the university. This reporter enjoyed a sneak peak at Megan’s website, which includes interesting shots and historical data about the Sputnik rockets. Megan said one of the hardest parts of the history project was weeding through all of information on the Internet, finding information that can be verified.
The projects that receive the highest ratings at the regional competition will advance to national competition in Washington D.C. in June 2010.
Whether they advance or not, the competitors agreed that it was a worthwhile experience. “It was really fun,” said Alex.
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