Students will be presenting their History Day projects Sat., April 6, at Grand View University.

The students have prepared their projects for the History Day competition all year.

Each year, the competition has a different theme which students base their projects around. This year’s theme is Turning Points in History.

Projects objects include a paper, website, documentary, performance or exhibit. Students can work individually or in a group in each category except the paper which is only individual.

“It is your chance to pick an interesting topic about history that you want to learn about,” junior Jordan Boge said.

Boge has participated in the event every year beginning in seventh grade. Boge selected his topic at the beginning of the school year and slowly started his research. The bulk of his work was completed during January.

This year, Boge’s project is a performance about Leni Riefenstahl. She created propaganda films for Hitler using new innovations and techniques that are still used today.

“Leni Riefenstahl created new techniques no one else was using and helped to make movies complicated and emotional artistic pieces that are now used today.” Boge said.

Boge enjoys being able to pick his own more discreet topic that nobody knows about and present it to others.

“I can’t stress how helpful History Day has been,” Boge said. “Doing a research paper in school has become easier because I know how to research and annotate properly.”

Although there is no class for history day at the high school level, the group of students participating are very supportive of each other.

During seventh grade students may take a class that teaches them how to research a topic and create a presentation.

ELP and AP Psychology teacher Sue Cline is available to the students for assistance and encouragement at the high school. Cline said there is no class for history day because when the students are at this level, they have already been trained well.

Cline would estimate that the students have put hundreds of hours into their projects in hopes of moving on to the state and national competitions.

“I’m really excited for the district competition to get one of my activities checked off my list,” Boge said,“yet I’m also excited because I really like this activity and want to do well at it.”