Western Pa. students earn National History Day honors
Western Pennsylvania students were well-represented in the National History Day in Pennsylvania state contest.
This year’s theme was “Breaking Barriers in History,” which could be applied to state, national or world history. The contest is broken into the Senior Division for students in ninth through 12th grade and the Junior Division for students is sixth through eighth grade.
In the Senior Division, Robyn Strazisar, Amelia DAddieco and Sophia Wilson from Peters Township High School took first place in the Group Exhibit for “From behind the lens: How Lewis Hine exposed child labor.”
Rishi Mukherjee of Winchester Thurston School earned first place for Individual Exhibit with “Bletchley Park: Brains over brawn.”
Rylee Shaw of Belle Vernon Area High School claimed first place for Individual Website with “The Firebird: Maria Tallchief, barrier-breaking ballerina.”
In the junior division, Leah Troiano and Maggie Nesko of Mary Queen of Apostles earned first place in Group Performance for “They are humans, too: Dorothea Dix breaks the gender barrier to advocate for the mentally ill.”
Anna Hoffmann of Peters Township Middle School claimed first place in Individual Exhibit with “Breaking the silence of the ‘chemical death rain’: Rachel Carson empowers the environmental movement.”
Nisah Alexander of Belle Vernon Area Middle school grabbed first place in Junior Paper for “The road that built America: The national road and the breaking of the nation’s first geographic and political barriers.”
Other honorees included:
Senior Division
= Ziad Jaafar and Matthew Rossi, Riverview High School, fifth place, Group Documentary, “Sputnik: The invention that inspired innovation”
= Katie Carlino and Taylor Billet, Riverview High School, fifth place, Group Exhibit, “Breaking the sound barrier: Helping profoundly deaf individuals listen and speak”
= Victor Williams, Joshua Rembe, Anthony Hartwick and Michael Allessi, Pine-Richland High School, second place, Group Performance, “A walk down Abbey Road: How the Beatles broke barriers in history”
= Lydia Berger and Quinn Kubistek, Norwin High School, fifth place, Group Performance, “Reagan and Gorbachev: Tearing down walls”
= Joey Inzinga and Aidan Draxinger, Riverview High School, sixth place, Group Website, “Hammurabi’s code: The barrier between freedom and society”
= Joelle Kennedy, Belle Vernon Area High School, fifth place, Individual Documentary, “The Allegheny cotton mill strikes: Breaking barriers for working-class women”
= Viva Kreis, Belle Vernon Area High School, fourth place, Individual Performance, “Her time to play: Women breaking barriers in basketball”
= Ethan Schroeder, St. Joseph High School, fifth place, Individual Performance, “‘Failure is not an option’: Breaking barriers to send man to the moon”
= Joseph Nypaver, Peters Township High School, fifth place, Individual Website, “Breaking barriers and splitting atoms: The development and use of the first atomic weapons”
Junior Division
= Shaeliyah Clendaniel, Hannah Bisceglia and Abigail Breakiorn, Belle Vernon Area Middle School, second place, Group Performance, “Out of the ashes and into the cauldron: The cotton mill strikes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania”
= Emma Fitch and Maclaine Povlish, Belle Vernon Area Middle School, fifth place, Group Performance, “Civil disobedience in Washington, Pennsylvania: Breaking the barrier of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850”
= Julianne Landsberg, Franklin Regional Middle School, third place, Individual Documentary, “Friendship 7: Breaking physiological barriers to change the course of the space race”
= Evelyn Maiman, Franklin Regional Middle School, fourth place, Individual Performance, “The real Pied Piper: Breaking familial barriers in WW2 to save England’s children”
= Emerson Simon, Franklin Regional Middle School, fifth place, Individual Performance, “Milton Hershey: One vision, one man”
= Olina Mukherjee, Kentucky Avenue School, second place, Individual Website, “From numbers to words: How Grace Hopper broke the barrier of human-computer communication”
= Grace Nesko, Mary Queen of Apostles, sixth place, Individual Website, “Defining history: Liberty, justice and truth through DNA testing”
For a full list of the winners, visit the Army Heritage Center Foundation’s website here.
Mike Palm is a TribLive digital producer who also writes music reviews and features. A Westmoreland County native, he joined the Trib in 2001, where he spent years on the sports copy desk, including serving as night sports editor. He has been with the multimedia staff since 2013. He can be reached at mpalm@triblive.com.
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