After second-place wins in state-level competition, three students from High School in the Community will represent Connecticut in the National History Day Contest in College Park, MD June 14 to 18.
In the group category, Janu Patel and Priya Patel focused on a historical Indian famine and the work of an Indian scientist who developed seeds to fight against future food insecurities. For the second year in the competition, they pursued a topic that allowed them to draw on their ancestry to tell compelling stories about Indian culture and history.
“When their names were announced during the awards, it demonstrated that even with finite resources, their deep research and high-quality information truly mattered,” said HSC Principal Dr. Nicholas Perrone. “They proved they could compete against much more heavily resourced high schools, based purely on academic merit.”
Competing in the individual category, Mya Stettinger created a “museum-style” project board and remade it after each round of competition to take account of judges’ feedback. Mya “spent many, many hours on countless versions and prints before finally producing one of the best projects we have ever seen,” said Perrone.