BHS Women Win State History Day Competition: Now on to the National Event in June

May 18, 2022
Courtesy images (c) all rights reserved

This is nothing less than a dynasty.

For the 17th consecutive year, at least one Bedford High School entry has qualified for the National History Day competition by winning a state championship.

There’s Erika Falco’s first-place individual exhibit, entitled, “Mercury 13: Debating Women’s Place in Space.”

And the team of Anna Chang, Amelia Griffin, and Elora Syed collaborated to win the senior group documentary category. Their entry is entitled, “Roe v. Wade: How Debate Resulted in a Controversial Decision on the Divisive Topic of Abortion.”

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Both Bedford projects won second place in regional contests. Responding to judges’ comments, the students upgraded their entries and subsequently won the state competition on April 9. The national event again will be virtual; it is scheduled for June 12-18.

History teacher Patrick Culhane presented the students and their winning projects to the School Committee at its meeting last week. Since joining the History Day competition in 2005, Culhane said, Bedford High has become “one of the premier programs in the state.”

He explained that during the first semester, all history honors students undertake a research project. Then during the following term, they have the option to compete at the regional level and beyond if they qualify.

“Students get a ton of different choices, which creates a lot of motivation for students to develop their projects into high-quality work,” Culhane said. Entries can be from an individual student or in groups of two to five, submitted as documentaries, exhibits, websites, live performances, or traditional research papers.

There is a unifying element, Culhane said: “Every single project must relate to the theme of National History Day. The theme for 2022 is: “Debate and Diplomacy in History.”

Falco showed her tri-fold six-foot-tall exhibit panels to the committee, which she shaped like a rocket, making it “kind of like an art project for me.”

She told the board that she learned about Mary “Wally” Funk, who Falco said tried unsuccessfully to be an astronaut for 60 years, rejected because she was a woman. Funk ultimately traveled to outer space in a private vehicle, and Falco interviewed her by electronic mail.

“I thought that was a really cool story,” Falco said. “That’s how I found out about the Mercury 13 – the women who were not accepted into the space program. The debate aspect was: should women be allowed to be astronauts? The overarching theme gives everybody a lens through which to look at a project.”

Griffin and Syed showed a small excerpt of their documentary at the committee meeting. Their entry concerning the landmark Roe v. Wade decision “happened to be super relevant.”

“We had previous experience making documentaries and we felt pretty competent in this medium,” she said. Syed added, “We took a lot of time revising and researching. Our most important overall source was Reva Siegel, a professor at Yale Law School. She was such a phenomenal person overall and she is so proud of us for getting this far.” Siegel provided “so much insight on the case and the nitty-gritty details.”

Their documentary is chronological, ending with how the decision affects contemporary life. The students said they will update their work for the national contest.

School Committee members lauded the students’ success. “This is a great example of going outside the classroom, outside the community, and learning some new skills,” said Sheila Mehta-Green. Added her colleague Dan Brosgol, “Our kids do amazing things.”

In an interview a few days after the meeting, Falco acknowledged that “history hasn’t been my favorite subject. This has made me a little more interested and invested. It’s so nice to know I can enjoy a history class.”

“What made me interested was I got to choose something that was more modern, something that targeted my interests, women’s rights and science. I could go deep into it,” she said. “My topic was personally impactful.”

The interview component was “really cool because it allowed us to reach out to experts and pushed us out of our comfort zone,” Falco continued. “We didn’t really want to call a professor and talk about our topic, but talking to these people helped us all learn.” She said she was able to reach Funk by reaching out to Loretta Hall, the co-author of her memoir.

In a conversation this week, Syed said preparing the trio’s documentary, almost 10 minutes in length, was time-consuming. There were many video and audio components.

“Our teachers compiled a list of topics that had debate or diplomacy or both,” she said, and the subject of Roe v. Wade was an easy choice, as the three are “passionate about the history of women’s rights.” Even before the leaked material from the U.S. Supreme Court, which has placed the issue back at the top of page one, “the case was so prevalent. We thought the topic was a good idea.”

Syed added, “Doing this project definitely gave me some insight on what I could do in the future.”

Griffin explained, “The theme is supposed to be broad so people can explore their interests. We knew it was going to be a long-term project and we looked immediately to the section on women’s history. We had no idea it was going to be this relevant.”

Besides Siegel the team interviewed two other law professors, she said, and “that really helped us put it into perspective,” Griffin said. “We’ve never really done such a long-term project. It was a totally new experience that taught me a lot about independent work and what it means to study one specific topic.”

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