Fremont Students Win at State History Competition

Submitted by the Alameda County Office of Education

Mission San Jose High School students Catherine Wang and Laura Chen from Fremont won the 2013 California State History Day competition for creating a website about China's Third Plenum, a major turning point in modern Chinese history for political, economic, social and cultural reforms. The annual competition was held on April 26-28 and hosted by National History Day-California in Sacramento. More than one-thousand students from grades 5-12 statewide displayed research projects on this year's National History Day theme, Turning Points in History. Students competed individually and in teams in the elementary, junior and senior divisions, and in five project categories: museum exhibits, documentary films, websites, dramatic performances and historical papers. 

Nearly 200 students competed at the Alameda County History Day competition on February 23, 2013 in Oakland, of which 47 students qualified for the California state competition. As state winners, Wang and Chen will advance to the Kenneth E. Behring National History Day Contest on June 9-13 at the University of Maryland to compete with students from across the United States, American Samoa, Guam, International Schools and Department of Defense Schools in Europe. 

Nine Alameda County students placed top in their category and won special awards at the state competition: 

• Senior Group Website - Co-Champions (advancing to national competition): Catherine Wang and Laura Chen, Mission San Jose High School, Fremont Unified School District. "China's Third Plenum: The Road to Reform." 

• Senior Group Exhibit - California Historic Places Award and California History Senior Exhibit Award (Special Awards): Pratyusha Vemuri and Anusha Vemuri, Amador Valley High School, Pleasanton Unified School District. "Richmond Kaiser Shipyards (1941-1946): A New Frontier in Shipbuilding." 

• Junior Group Website - Runners-Up (Third Place): Ethan Shang and David Wang, William Mendenhall Middle School, Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. "Medical Advances in the Civil War." 

• Junior Historical Paper - Runner Up (Third Place): Brianna Bourne, Ecole Bilingue de Berkeley. "The Birth Control Pill and Reform of Social Norms for American Women." 

• Senior Historical Paper - Finalist (Top 10): Katrina Cherk, Mission San Jose High School, Fremont Unified School District. "The American Polio Epidemics: Redefining Philanthropies, Reforming Medical Research and Catalyzing the Disability Rights Movement." 

• Junior Individual Website - Finalist (Top 10): Sarah Ng, William Mendenhall Middle School, Livermore Valley Joint Unified School District. "My Journey to Giotto"  

For more information, contact Kristen Yasukawa, ACOE Communications, at 510-670-7754.