For the first time in Unalaska City School District history, two Unalaska students will compete in the National History Day competition.
Eighth-grader Natnicha “Michelle” Lord and sophomore Crina Bivol each created websites that earned first place in their age groups at the state contest, where judges selected 20 projects out of 60 to advance to nationals.
Lord’s research focuses on the environmental impacts of military debris left in the Aleutian Islands since the 1940s. Her project was titled, “The Formerly Used Defense Sites of the Aleutian Islands: A Forgotten Responsibility and a Lost Right.”
“Basically, it's about when in World War II, the military came to the Aleutian Islands and did their thing fighting the war, but then they left behind all of these nasty chemicals and infrastructures,” Lord said. “It took them a really long time to even address the issue, because these things are contaminants, so they hurt people, right? But they haven't even cleaned them up.”
Lord hopes her project raises awareness about these contaminated sites that many Unalaskans may not even realize exist. She collected interviews with locals and documents from the Library of Congress.
Bivol’s project investigates how American corporate interests led to the 1954 Guatemala coup, which was triggered when the Guatemalan president passed laws that would redistribute unused land from companies to local farmers. Her project was titled: “The United Fruit Company’s Manipulation of its Rights and the Responsibilities it Evaded with the Help of the CIA During the 1950s.”
“It was a really interesting topic about how something as simple as bananas, and how something as simple as land ownership in a country, because the company needed it, could escalate into such a thing as a coup,” Bivol said. “You wouldn't think that would happen.”
Both students credit their wins to elementary school teacher Dena Royal, who started Unalaska’s first-ever National History Day club this year. Both students plan to continue with the club next year.
“It's really fun to do, especially because you get to go over unknown or obscure topics that might not be known otherwise,” Bivol said.
Lord and Bivol will compete in Washington, D.C., in mid-June, joining 3,000 students from across the country in the national competition.
