History Day a Herricks success

The Island Now
Herricks students excelled at the National History Day Regional Competition, held at Hofstra University on March 31, which featured 46 schools and more than 815 students from across Long Island. This year, Herricks High School and Middle School competed and won in many categories for work that they developed after thoroughly researching various historical topics. Photo courtesy of Herricks Public Schools.

Herricks students excelled at the National History Day Regional Competition, held at Hofstra University on March 31, which featured 46 schools and more than 815 students from across Long Island. This year, Herricks High School and Middle School competed and won in many categories for work that they developed after thoroughly researching various historical topics.

The high school and middle school both celebrate first-place groups, and high school students won prizes in nearly every category. The high school came home with eight total winners and two special awards. Seven of their projects, in addition to the one from the middle school, will now advance to the State Competition in Cooperstown on April 29.

At the high school level, a first-place win was achieved by Amisha Brahmbhatt, Prableen Kaur, Sarah Ninan and Roshni Patel for their group exhibit, titled “The Easter Rising of 1916: The Tragic Fight for an Independent Ireland.” They also received an Irish or Irish American Award sponsored by the Ancient Order of Hibernians. David Xiang, David Zhang, Gurvir Singh, Karan Kaknia placed first for their group website, “The India Partition: A Line Drawn in Blood.”

Second place honors were earned by Selina Chiang, Maggie Lau, Grace Kim and Emily Wei for their group performance, “Scrubbing Away the Blackness: The Plight of the Stolen Aboriginal Generation.” Felisha Ma took second place as well, for her individual performance of “Cherokee vs. Georgia.” In the Group Documentary category, Aarya Agarwal, Abhinav Goyal, Aditya Lodha, Prameet Shah placed second with the project, “The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Courage Knows No Number.”

Emily Cho, Melissa Lau, Pranjal Jan, Prithula Simrin and Amber Wiqas took third place for their group exhibit, “Vietnam’s Inferno: Thich Quang Duc’s Self Immolation Sparked a Revolution.” Jane Chung, Madison Chu, Menaka Srinivasan, Stella Chu were named third place in group performance for their presentation, “Driving the Golden Spike of Progress through the Backs of the Yellow Man.” Riya Kapoor won a third-place award for an individual exhibit titled “The Manhattan Project: Triumph from Tragedy.”

Rma Polce received the Maritime History Award Sponsored by Cold Spring Harbor Whaling Museum for the project, “The 1969 Union Oil Spill.”

Middle school students Tiffany Leo, Sanjana Lodha, Dheyala Simrin and Celeste Zhang placed first in their group performance of “Lois Gibbs: The Triumph and Tragedy of a Mother on a Mission.”

National History Day is a yearlong educational program sponsored in New York State by the New York State Historical Association that encourages students in grades 6-12 to explore local, state, national and world history. Herricks participants spend countless hours working on their research, for which they access major databases in the libraries, analyze their findings and develop meaningful and comprehensive projects.

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