Students earn State Championship in National History Day competition

Deer Lakes junior Sydney Maksin and sophomore Melanie Brown earned first place in the National History Day State Competition. They qualified for the National History Day national competition in June at the University of Maryland.

Deer Lakes junior Sydney Maksin and sophomore Melanie Brown earned first place in the National History Day State Competition.

“I feel great especially because this is my fourth year competing in National History Day,” Melanie said. “All of our hard work paid off.”

Their 3-D exhibit is entitled “Mister Rogers’ Silent Revolution: The Turning Point for Children’s Television and Diversity in Media.” They focused on the importance of the TV programming of Fred Rogers and how he used his platform as an educational tool to empower children to treat people different from them with kindness and respect, paving the way for diversity in children’s television.

It is the first time Melanie and Sydney have formed a team with each other for the National History Day competition. They selected Fred Rogers from a list of about 20 other topics.

“We felt it was important to explore the importance of Mister Rogers because he is from Pittsburgh and everyone here knows who he is,” Sydney said. “Even though everyone knows who he is, we felt that not too many people truly understand the impact he had on television and diversity.”

They said Fred Rogers’ impact goes far beyond the television show that he is known for.

“People our age probably saw some episodes of Mister Rogers, but we more so watched the shows created by his production company,” Melanie said. “That’s part of his legacy that we also focused on in our project. There are so many shows that came after him that followed the same messages that he introduced to television.”

“Shows like Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood have all of the same messages and meanings that Mister Rogers shared with the world,” Sydney added.

Melanie and Sydney qualified for the National History Day national competition in June at the University of Maryland.