Subjects with impact: AIDS crisis, same-sex case
History projects by three Ottoson Middle School students — about AIDS and same-sex marriage — have won national recognition.
Eleanor Freed and Genevieve Baldwin came in second place nationally in final competition for National History Day, in the Junior Group Website, for their project titled “Silence=Death: How ACT UP New York Changed the Public View of the AIDS Crisis.”ACT UP New York Changed the Public View of the AIDS Crisis.”
Grace Walters came in 10th place nationally in the Junior Individual Documentary category with a 10-minute presentation titled “The Massachusetts Seven: Goodridge v. The Department of Public Health.”
The Nov. 18, 2003, decision was the first by a U.S. state’s highest court to find that same-sex couples had the right to marry.
“All the students who represented Ottoson Middle School at the national competition should be extremely proud of their accomplishment,” wrote Jason Levy, a history teacher involved in guiding seven Ottoson eighth graders with their projects. He and colleague Tom Bushell lead the school’s National History Day Club.
“Their dedication and effort has paid off. I am especially proud of each student’s willingness to spend countless nights and weekends outside of school working on a topic they felt passionate about.”
5 projects are the most
Five projects qualified for the National History Day competition, which took place June 11 through 15 at the University of Maryland. No other school in the state sent more than two projects.
This year, 18 middle school projects (grades 6 to 8) qualified for the nationals.
In state finals of the competition in May, Nathan Pokress, Walters, Baldwin and Freed got first place in varied categories, while Louisa Baldwin, Sagar Rastogi and Connor Rempe got second.
Overall, half a million students participate in the National History Day competition annually, and 3,000 from all 50 states and international schools are selected for nationals.
Other Ottoson projects that advanced in May were:
— Nathan Pokress: “Seuss, Social Justice, and Saving the World Through Illustration” (performance);
— Louisa Baldwin: “Alan Turing: The Brains to Britain’s Brawn” (performance); and
— Sagar Rastogi and Connor Rempe: “Don’t Tinker with my Free Speech: Tinker v. Des Moines and Student Rights.”
How they got there
The process began last September, when the competition released this year’s theme, “Taking A Stand in History.” Students were asked to go beyond established facts and dates.
With direction from Levy and Bushell, students spent hours conducting primary interviews, collecting secondary research and documenting all with a bibliography.
The regional competition in March sent the top three in each category to the state finals; the top two in state finals advanced to nationals.
Baldwin and Freed fact-checked conflicting primary sources in portraying how ACT UP New York altered how the public saw the AIDS crisis beginning in 1987.
For her project, Walters interviewed five of the plaintiffs involved in the landmark Goodridge case.
Pokress, who took first in the junior individual performance state category, threw on a Dr. Seuss hat and portrayed Theodore Seuss Geisel, known for his children’s books, such as, well, “The Cat in the Hat.”
Rastogi, who worked with Rempe and did their project on the U.S. Supreme Court free-speech case Tinker v. Des Moines, a defining constitutional rights decision during the Vietnam War, said they two spoke to two of the plaintiffs in the case, as well as a First Amendment law professor at Harvard Law.
This news summary was published Wednesday, June 21, 2017.
