History comes alive at SUNY Oneonta

Apr. 24—Students from across the state, including some from Cooperstown and Milford, competed in New York State History Day at SUNY Oneonta Monday, April 24.

Students competed in five different categories — documentary, website, paper, exhibit or performance — and spoke about how their topics fit with this year's theme of "Frontiers in History: People, Places, Ideas."

Cooperstown students Leah Phillips and Sophia Johnson presented on how Title IX shaped "Women in Sports: Crossing a Frontier."

"We both really believe in equality for all," Johnson said.

Phillips said they spent a lot of time in the school's library researching their topic. Johnson said until Title IX was passed, Cooperstown didn't offer many opportunities for girls to play sports. "There were mostly modified sports and barely any varsity sports," she said.

Johnson said they also learned how women who wanted to play sports were treated. "Some men held protests just because they didn't want women to play sports," she said. "It really interested me, because they could have let them play."

Johnson and Phillips were joined by several classmates at the state tournament. Cooperstown Library Media Specialist Michelle Hitchcock said she and history teacher John Brotherton are co-advisors of a club, and said a majority of the students competing at the state title were in eighth grade, though there were a few in seventh, ninth and 10th grades.

Hitchcock said she has participated in History Day for 20 years with Cooperstown students and enjoys interacting with other teams at the state tournament to find out what topics they chose. "They're all original," she said.

Cooperstown sophomore Pauline Kennedy said she chose to talk about the Berlin Wall. She said the German word for frontier also means border, and the Berlin Wall stood as the border between East Berlin and West Berlin for almost 30 years. She said she presented her topic at a local Rotary meeting and following the meeting was able to interview other people for her project. To gain perspective on older and younger generations, she interviewed someone who grew up in Germany, a U.S border patrol officer who was stationed at the wall, and a teenager who grew up in Germany after the wall fell.

"It was really interesting," Kennedy said. "I didn't realize all the background of the wall and what it meant mentally to them." She said, p"eople were scared because the Communists were on the other side of the wall."

Cooperstown students discussed other topics, including "The Antarctic Frontier: The Race to the South Pole," "Isaac Newton: The Pioneer of the Frontier of Gravity," "Katherine Johnson: Clearing Boundaries in Space for Woman," "The New Frozen Frontier: Clarence Birdseye," "Tibetans Escape to Freedom" and "The Lunar Landing: Frontiers on the Moon."

Milford Central School student William Bellen said he wanted to research upstate New York's contribution to NASA, but then decided to focus on how upstate innovations have changed the state and the nation since Europeans settled the region in the 1600s. His documentary explored how the Erie Canal was a major turning point, and he highlighted the contributions Kodak, Corning, Cornell University and IBM made in the state during the industrial revolution and after. Bellen's documentary also included the downturn of the upstate economy and how Micron and IBM are investing billions of dollars to bring chip manufacturing to upstate.

Judges asked Bellen some questions, such as where he thought upstate New York starts. Bellen answered that he always thought it started further north than where he chose to start highlighting businesses. "IBM is important on the global scale, so I had to include parts of the lower Hudson Valley," he said. He also said he omitted a whole section on PepsiCo due to time constraints.

Bellen said after winning at the regional event he spent several weeks revamping his video. He is taking a history elective from teacher Kara Dunderdale.

Hitchcock said she wished other teachers would incorporate History Day into their curriculum. "It's a great project," she said. "Students learn how to write a research paper with annotated bibliography and develop skills. It will have a huge impact on their future education."

The students presenting their work at NYSHD have competed locally and regionally and hope to win the chance to go to Maryland and Washington D.C. in June, to compete in the National History Day competition. Results were not known as of press time.

Vicky Klukkert, staff writer, can be reached at vklukkert@thedailystar.com or 607-441-7221.