Two Bettendorf Middle School students competed in the 2020 National History Day (NHD) contest in Washington D.C.
Eighth grader Quinn Leone’s historical paper, “Breaking Barriers in the Treatment of the Mentally Unsound: Nellie Bly Exposes the Atrocities of Blackwell's Island Asylum,” and sixth grader Cecelia Spector’s individual website “Katherine Johnson: An African American Pioneer,” were part of Iowa’s national contingent in the junior division.
Also, Bettendorf Middle School seventh grader Calista Rasmer was selected as an alternate for the national contest for her individual website “Breaking the Barriers of Disease: Penicillin Ushers in the Golden Era of Antibiotics” and Bettendorf High School’s Noah Raso was selected as a nationals alternate in the senior division for his individual documentary “The US and Ho Chi Minh: An Unbreakable Barrier.”
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The event is a year-long academic enrichment program that challenges students to research, develop and present papers, exhibits, documentaries, websites and performances about historical issues, ideas, people and events related to an annual theme.
This year’s theme was “Breaking Barriers in History.” Established in 1974, more than half a million middle- and high-school students around the world participate in the program annually to conduct original research on historical topics of interest.
The program includes a Junior Division (grades 6-8), Senior Division (grades 9-12) and a non-competitive Youth Division (grades 4-5).
Projects compete first at the local and affiliate levels, where the top entries are invited to the National Contest at the University of Maryland at College Park. In Iowa, thousands of students participate at school contests across the state in order to advance to district contests. From the district contests, students and their projects are selected to move on to the state contest in Des Moines at the end of April. From the state contest, two entries from each category are selected to advance to the National History Day competition in Washington D.C. where they compete against nearly 3,000 students from across the United States, as well as numerous international schools from countries such as China, Korea and South Asia.
This year, both the state contest in Iowa and the national contest in Washington, D.C., were conducted virtually because of the COVID-19 epidemic.
Bettendorf Community School District NHD teachers include: Deb Temperly, Bettendorf Middle School teacher-librarian; Kelly Turner, sixth-eighth grades honors language arts; Landon Fry, eight-grade honors language arts; Amanda Hutchinson, seventh-grade honors language arts; Kym Daurer, sixth-grade social studies; Deb Crocker, sixth-grade social studies; Sue Owen, sixth-grade honors language arts; Connie Jeschke, NHD volunteer; and Mary Heeringa, Bettendorf High School teacher-librarian.
