Frontier Students Shine At National History Day Montana Contest

National History Day in Montana held its annual state contest on April 12, at Montana State University, where 21 Frontier School students competed against 119 other students from across Montana. Students presented projects in a variety of categories, including documentary, exhibit board, performance, website and research papers.

The contest set the stage for the National History Day National Contest, which will take place June 8–12, in College Park, Md.

This year’s NHD theme, “Rights & Responsibilities in History,” invites students to examine essential questions: Who decides who has rights? What events have established certain rights? How are those decisions justified?

Frontier School students used critical thinking skills to analyze what rights and responsibilities mean as Americans and applied those skills to specific historical events. Students began developing their project ideas in October and engaged in months of personalized learning and research, blending social studies education with historical investigation.

Frontier School contest winners advancing to nationals are: Max Rees (Website): The Founding of Saint-Domingue Kenzley Copenhaver (Documentary): Buried Stories: Boarding Schools Emmy Matthews (Documentary): Fort Shaw Girls Champions (1904) Kori Hentges (Exhibit Board): Women’s Fight for Equal Rights James Payne (Exhibit Board): Project Title TBD Alternates include: Reed Garfield (Website): Taking a Stand by Sitting Down: The Montgomery Bus Boycott Mariah Lewis (Exhibit Board): Laws That Restricted African Americans Gabe Uy (Documentary): Fight for Fair Housing (1968) All projects were informed by primary sources and deeply researched, offering fresh perspectives on historical events.

Tina Strauser, NHD advisor and Frontier School’s social studies teacher, said: “This project is a valuable part of understanding history. It allows students to think critically about how we live today by connecting past events to modern issues. National History Day is creating students who will grow up to actively engage in our democracy and who are equipped to establish their own points of view.”

Students shared their own reflections on the experience: Max Rees, eighth grader, said: “What I like about National History Day is that I now know how to use primary and secondary sources to research historic topics, which gives my historical argument value.” DaRae Deserly added, “I really enjoyed being on the MSU campus, but my project also took me out of my comfort zone and pushed me to meet the challenge.”

Trenton McCarty said, “Being on the MSU campus let me experience what it might be like as a college student. I also liked hearing how other kids applied this year’s theme of Rights and Responsibilities to their historical projects.”

National History Day began in 1974 in Cleveland, Ohio, founded by Dr. David Van Tassel, a professor at Case Western Reserve University. Concerned about declining history education, Van Tassel launched NHD to encourage students to analyze historical events and draw conclusions about their impacts on human society. Over 50 years later, as history curricula remain politicized in many states, programs like NHD are more important than ever in fostering historical understanding and civic engagement.

For more information about Frontier School’s NHD program or to learn how to support these students as they head to nationals, contact Tina Strauser at Frontier School: tstrauser@frontierk8. org or 406-650-6113.