STEM in National History Day

I was interested in which National History Day themes tended to generate STEM-related or arts-related projects. I had access to the full lists of national contest entries from 2016-2018 and the lists of finalists from 2011 to 2018. This post focuses on STEM-related projects.

The number of STEM projects at the national contest and in finals varies significantly from year to year, and it seems very tied to the topic. Topics that focus on the impact of a person or event (such as "Turning Points" or "Revolution, Reaction, Reform") lend themselves to STEM topics. The most common fields for STEM projects across years are medicine, environment, and disease, with space, nuclear, and other biology topics also common. This might be because of accessible resources on those topics or earlier exposure of students to them. No NHD category consistently has the most STEM projects, but performance often has the least.

Below the fold are more details on what I found. There are some notes/disclaimers about this analysis and how I categorized projects at the end.

NHD 2017-18: Conflict and Compromise

Here are some arts and STEM topics ideas for this year's NHD theme! I expect it to be a pretty low year for both arts and STEM projects; "Conflict and Compromise" isn't the easiest theme for either one. I'll be adding to this post for the next month or so.

STEM

-- The War of Currents (AC vs DC current). This has had a winner to an extent, but there are a lot of ways in which we still use each of AC and DC current today, so this does feel like it involved a compromise to me.
-- Wave-Particle Duality. I feel a little odd calling this a compromise, but the answer to "Is light a wave or a particle?" is well, yes. It took us a while to figure that out, and the history of the experiments and discussions that finally led us to the current model is really interesting.
-- Galileo. This was recommended in the theme book, maybe because Galileo compromised his values in recanting, maybe because he had earlier come to a compromise with the church (and then in the church's eyes crossed the agreed upon line). I'm hesitant to strongly recommend this topic because of its familiarity and applicability to a wide range of NHD themes.
-- Ethics of Human Subject Research. This is pretty broad, but it's a subject based on compromise. Biomedical and behavioral research is often very valuable, but we need to do it in a way that is safe and respectful of the people involved as research subjects. Key documents to consider: the Nuremberg Code, the Declaration of Helsinki, the Belmont Report, the National Research Act of 1974.
-- Munsell Color System. This paper argues that Albert Henry Munsell's system of describing color was a compromise that largely resolved a conflict around color science. It might be difficult to use this paper as a starting point; either it makes the argument you want to make, or you effectively argue against it. But this seemed interesting, so I wanted to throw it in.
-- Endangered Species Act. The ESA has existed in several forms and has been amended a number of times, generally seeking compromise between industry and protection of species.
-- Echo Park Dam and Glen Canyon Dam. Glen Canyon Dam was the compromise after there was controversy about the proposed Echo Park Dam, which was on protected land. (There are also similar other projects that you could look at; I found an Army document about development of the Snake River titled "Controversy, Conflict, and Compromise: A History of the Lower Snake River Development.")
-- Apostle Islands National Lakeshore. This park includes less area than originally planned because of Native American (especially Ojibwe) activism advocating for their land rights. There are probably other cases of preservation or conservation movements and Native American land rights coming into conflict that you could look for.
-- Cooperative Game Theory. So this is a kind of sideways take on the topic, but cooperative game theory is a mathematical field founded on ideas of conflict and compromise. Looking at its history (and in particular the early work of John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern) would be really cool and, I think, unique.

Arts

-- Ballet in the early Soviet Union. In the 1920s, there was a lot of discussion in the Soviet Union around ballet as an art. It had a strong history in Russia, but it was tied heavily to the nobility and especially to the tsars. It was virtuoso and didn't tell stories of the common people... but the classical, Imperial-era ballets still drew huge crowds. I think one could do a good project about that conflict and how the leadership eventually reconciled ballet with socialist ideals. Book recommendations: Swans of the Kremlin, Apollo's Angels, Bolshoi Confidential.
-- An Actors or Writers Guild strike; there have been several large ones in the US over the past century. Most labor negotiations involve a lot of conflict and compromise, and some of these have had major impacts on the affected industries. (I'd recommend against the Disney animators' strike because of the minimal compromise involved.)
-- Vietnam Veterans' Memorial. Maya Lin's design for the memorial was controversial, and more traditional memorial elements were added to the plans as a compromise.
-- Rodgers and Hammerstein. This is suggested in the theme book, and the reasoning isn't entirely clear, but here's my best guess. Several R&H shows have liberal political messages but don't fully commit to them. (South Pacific has a good deal of uncondemned Orientalism while also addressing racism and interracial marriage, for example.) Robert Gordon's The Oxford Handbook of Sondheim Studies definitely refers to this as a compromise.

Themed AP Lang and Comp: Biology

The Advanced Placement English Language and Composition exam is focused on analysis and argument based on nonfiction texts, which means there's a lot of opportunity to theme the readings for a course that prepares students for the exam. I'll write about a few different themes; this post focuses on a biology theme.

The key components of a class preparing students for the AP Lang & Comp exam are:

• writing narrative, expository, analytical, and argumentative essays
• writing multiple drafts of essays
• some informal writing (journaling, etc.)
• writing assignments based on a variety of prose styles & genres
• nonfiction readings of a variety of types (essays, journalism, political writing, science or nature writing, biography, diaries, history, criticism, etc.)
• graphic/visual image analysis
• citing sources

With those components in mind, here is an example set of readings for a biology themed class. I tried to assemble a set of readings that could fit together coherently while covering different types of writing and fields within biology.

National History Day 2015: Chemistry and Biology Topics

The theme for 2015 NHD is Leadership and Legacy in History.

History of science topics tend to be underrepresented in NHD, so here are chemistry and biology topic suggestions for this year's theme! Some of these might be a bit of a stretch of the theme or might interpret it in an unusual way.

Something I find cool about this topic is that the 'legacy' bit explicitly requires discussing the impact in the present, so think about all of these with that in mind! Another thing to keep in mind is something that is specifically called out in this year's theme handbook: not everyone who "leads the way" shows leadership. The handbook actually specifically calls out scientists: "Does a scientist display leadership because he or she invents something that is historically significant? Not necessarily." The people I've listed here did great things in their field. The question to consider is whether they displayed leadership of others.

Chemistry

Kathleen Lonsdale, one of the first women elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society and a pioneer of x-ray crystallography
Elsie Widdowson and nutrition
Dorothy Hodgkin, x-ray diffraction, worked out the structures of penicillin and vitamin B12
Anne McLaren and in vitro fertilization
Louis Pasteur and pasteurization or vaccination
Svante Arrhenius, founder of physical chemistry
Otto Hahn, father of nuclear chemistry
Fritz Haber, father of chemical warfare. This could make for an interesting argument about leadership.
Dmitri Mendeleev and the periodic table

National History Day 2014: Chemistry and Biology Topics

The National History Day theme for 2014 is "Rights & Responsibilities in History!"

In my NHD experience, I found science topics (among others) to be underrepresented. This is a first in a series of posts offering some suggestions for topics. This post focuses on chemistry and biology.

The "Rights & Responsibilities" theme lends itself to topics dealing with ethics in science. Some of these topics will be areas that bring up ethical questions, and others will be specific events in which people acted ethically or unethically. All of these topics should be interpreted with respect to the theme.

The list of topics is below the fold.
Note: If you're looking for 2014-2015 ideas (Leadership and Legacy), go here!