National History Day is a nationwide competition for middle school and high school students.  We encourage students to use their CREATIVITY to develop ORIGINAL HISTORICAL RESEARCH focused on our annual theme.

Students compete not only for the opportunity to travel to the national competition in College Park, Maryland (near Washington, D.C.).  They can also compete for a wide variety of SCHOLARSHIPS AND OTHER AWARDS.  They compete in the following categories:

Documentary (group and individual)

Exhibit (group and individual)

Paper (individual)

Performance (group and individual)

Website (group and individual)

To give you a sense of the range of subjects, projects from the 2009 competition (theme: The Individual in History) included a dramatization of Harriet Tubman’s life, a documentary on Civil Rights activist James Meredith, a paper on the development of the Interstate Highway System, and an exhibit on Marco Polo.  Check out our program (to the right) for a complete listing. 

Students win just by participating in National History Day.  Developing a better understanding of the past means DIGGING INTO PRIMARY SOURCES, SHARPENING CRITICAL THINKING, and ASKING IMPORTANT QUESTIONS about the ways societies work.  In short, National History Day projects build BETTER STUDENTS AND CITIZENS.

We also want to HELP TEACHERS by making National History Day a useful classroom resource, something that can enrich existing existing lessons and reduce the burden on already over-burdened educators.  Check out these testimonials from teachers who have found National History Day a valuable classroom resource.

Check out our RESOURCES page for more information on local collections of historical resources in your area.  You’ll be surprised to see how many archives and local museums we have all across the state.

In addition to putting teachers in contact with local archivists and museum directors, we are offering WORKSHOPS for teachers (with continuing education credit) and for students, run by faculty from the University of Southern Mississippi’s Department of History.  We are testing this program this year in the Hattiesburg area and on the Coast, with an eye toward expanding it in future years.  If you are interested in bringing National History Day into your classroom, let us know HOW WE CAN HELP!

For more information and resources, including detailed rules and guides, check out the all-new www.nhd.org.