Another big year for Salk students at Minnesota History Day

Felicia Schall and Margaret Krueger outside Williams Arena after Minnesota History Day wearing their medals and thinking about how to prepare their project for nationals.

Another big year for Salk students at Minnesota History Day

The History Day program at Salk Middle School celebrated its tenth year this year, and once again, more than 500 students successfully completed an extensive research project on a topic of their choice and presentation of their choice.

For the fifth year in a row, one of those projects will be advancing to the National History Day competition in Washington, D.C. This time around that honor goes to Margaret Krueger and Felicia Schall, a team of 8th graders who researched, wrote and produced a documentary called The Love Canal: A Toxic Love Story. The film told the story of a massive environmental pollution disaster that took place in a residential neighborhood in the state of New York in the late 1970s. One result of the disaster was the creation of the federal Superfund program aimed at identifying and cleaning up industrial pollution.

Advancing to the national contest is extremely tough because only two from each category are permitted to advance. Across Minnesota a total of 27,000 students participated in History Day this year and a record 1,300 advanced to the state contest, held Saturday, April 28 at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. Schall and Krueger’s achievement puts them in a group that consists of the top one-quarter of one percent in the state. They were part of Salk’s second largest team ever at state. (text courtesy of Ron Hustvedt)

Salk History Day teachers (l to r) Scott Glew, Nikki Tripp, Starrsha Wolff and Ron Hustvedt