"National History Day" Has Powerful Affect on Green Country Students

Hundreds of Oklahoma students marked Friday as "National History Day" in a competition at Tulsa Community College. The students combined research skills, creativity and months of hard work to produce

Friday, February 25th 2000, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

Hundreds of Oklahoma students marked Friday as "National History Day" in a competition at Tulsa Community College. The students combined research skills, creativity and months of hard work to produce some powerful learning experiences.

History Day is designed to excite students about digging into the past and it appears
to be working. Nearly 500 middle and high school students entered the Oklahoma competition this year, whose theme
was "Turning Points In History."

Student Jenneca McCarter thought researching the steam engine would be fun. "I learned how the different kinds of pumps work and the engines and about the different inventors,â€ she said. â€œI better understand it a lot more now."

Students presented their topics through projects, performances or media entries. Judging was strict. "Were they analytical?,â€ said Tulsa Community College history professor Jim Hardwick. â€œDid they deal with the 'what' of the situation, the why, the effect, and did they have a supporting bibliography they used in their paper?"

Broken Arrow student Russ Perugino won first place with his documentary on the Tulsa Race Riot. He says it's hard to describe how much he learned. "I was amazed, because there was so much information,â€ he said. â€œThere's still so much that's not known about it."

Perugino researched the riot through interviews with survivors, books and articles, and riot commission meetings. He created a reenactment of the incident said to have triggered the riot. Besides his own learning, he hopes his work serves another purpose.
"Since the riot is not talked about at all,â€ he said. â€œThere's a good reason for people to learn about it, because this is not only part of Tulsa's history, but of America's history."

Students also brought history alive through performances. An entry from Haskell Middle School focused on the French Revolution through Louis XVI and his executioner. Students say they were surprised by what they learned about France. "It was just so much more corrupt than I thought,â€said student Levi Harrell. â€œAnd how cruel the king and queen treated their people."

Teachers say this approach makes study of history more real and relevant to students' lives, and hopefully creates a life-long passion for examining the past.