Just like everything else these past two months, the Rhode Island National History Day competition was held virtually.

National History Day first made its way to Toll Gate High School in 1990 when Thalia Wood, current head of the social studies department introduced it to the school. Currently freshman honors history students are the only students that are required to participate in National History Day at Toll Gate.

Beginning in October, the project takes just under five months to complete.

Students must choose what or whom they are going to research for their project and then put the information they found into the medium they chose to present it. What or whom the students choose to focus their research on is entirely up to them as long as it falls into the annual theme that National History Day chooses for that year's contest. For the 2019-2020 academic year, the selected theme was “breaking barriers in history.”

This year's competition already had its share of obstacles to overcome before the COVID-19 pandemic. Originally the school competition was scheduled for early March, however the Toll Gate water main break pushed the contest back one week. After that was taken care of the contest hit another snag. The English department was hosting their Shakespeare day when they returned from the water main break and the contest was pushed back again until Monday, March 16.

Unfortunately, for the social studies department and the participating students, they were informed on Friday, March 13 that they would not be returning to school due to the pandemic. This meant that National History Day had to be transitioned to online, just like the classes.

"I had to coordinate a virtual competition," Wood said. "This meant that the students had to submit all of their entries on a Google classroom just for the competition."

Teachers in the social studies department and the school librarian as well served as judges for the competition. Sixteen of the students that participated in the school competition were sent to the state contest to compete for a chance at going to the national competition.

One of these students was freshman Kristen Carcieri, who chose to research Katherine Graham, publisher, president and chair of the board of the Washington Post from 1963-1991.

"I wanted a strong female in history," Carcieri said. "I was researching and I came across the movie, The Post. I really loved the movie and I started researching and was very happy with all of the information that I was finding."

Students have five presentation options to choose from when completing their project. They could either write a paper, produce a documentary, build an exhibit or website or put together a performance.

For her project, Carcieri decided that she was going to do a performance. Normally all projects are presented in front of a panel of judges made up of social studies department teachers and the school librarian. At the end of each presentation, judges normally would provide feedback and ask the students questions, but due to the presentation having to be submitted via

Google Classroom this did not occur.

Carcieri, instead, had to record her performance and send it in. The only challenge that she faced with this transition was capturing the entire background of her performance. She ended up being one of the 16 students that Toll Gate sent to the state level competition. There she finished in first place in the category of individual performance.

In total, 12 Toll Gate students out of the 16 that they sent to the state

competition qualified for the national level contest by finishing in either

first or second place in their respective categories. Those winners that

will be competing in the national level competition are as follows: Kate

Flanagan, first place, Individual Documentary on Breaking Medical Barriers:

The Discovery of Anesthesia; Svetlana Stepanova and Coco Collette, first

place, Group Exhibit on Salk Conquers Polio; Makenna Izzo, Karlie Lynch and

Victoria Halstead, second place, Group Documentary on STEMinism: The Story

of the First American Woman in Space; Mackenzie Silcox, second place,

Individual Exhibit on Special Olympics: Acceptance, Inclusion, Respect; Micah

Malone, Cian Roberts and Ben Tietze second place, Group Exhibit on Breaking

Barriers: Piercing the Atlantic Wall; Hailey Randall, second place,

Individual Website on Benny Goodman: More Than the "King of Swing".

Fellow Toll Gate High School Student Shaelin Donovan was also recognized

during the virtual Rhode Island History Day competition. Donovan was

awarded The Carter Roger Williams Initiative Award for her individual

exhibit, "Guilty of Wrong Thinking- Why She Didn't Keep Quiet. St. Peter

School student Ashley Young was awarded the Rhode Island Labor History

Award for her individual exhibit, "The Americans with Disabilities Act:

Breaking Barriers and Opening Doors".

High school students were not the only ones to compete in the virtual Rhode

Island National History Day. Middle schoolers from around the Ocean State

competed in the junior division. Taking home first place in the junior

division individual exhibit category was Georgia Moreira from St. Peter

School. Moreira's individual exhibit was about, "Jeannette Rankin: Breaking

Gender Barriers in Congress". Finishing in second place in the junior

division historical paper category was Claire Fitzgerald from St. Rose of

Lima School. Fitzgerald's paper was, "Florence Nightingale: The Life and

Works of 'The Lady with the Lamp'".

Alexander Sulyma from Winman Middle School also finished in second

place in the category for junior individual documentary for his work, "All

That Jazz: Jazz Music and the Breaking Down of Racial Barriers in the Jim

Crow Era". All of the entries, top finishers and award winners can be

viewed on the showcase site:

https://sites.google.com/nhd.org/rinhdvirtualshowcase2020.

As of now, the national contest is scheduled to be held on the campus of

the University of Maryland, College Park, 12 miles outside of Washington

D.C. The contest is set to begin on Sunday, June 14 and last until

Thursday, June 18.