This self-paced course will guide students through the process of designing, researching, compiling, and presenting research for a history fair project.  The results of this class will meet the guidelines to apply to local history fairs around the world in the National History Day competition.  Students will learn about how to design a project that researches a historical issue, how to display the evidence of that research with a project board and written work, and how to present the project to the group.  Information will be provided for how to enter such competitions if students decide to submit their work.  

As this is a flexible schedule course, this course will offer no live class meetings, allowing your student to build their own project over the 8 week time period.  Instead of live meetings, your student will have access to a class recording weekly to watch to demonstrate an aspect of creating a successful history fair project, as well as additional written and visual documents to augment the recording.  Each week, students are expected to respond to interactive activities on the message board that will help them build skills relevant to their own projects, as well as to respond to at least 2 other student's responses, interacting as a group to help each other brainstorm and create an effective presentation.  We will create a healthy group discussion through messages to engage with the contents of the recordings.  This course will involve group brainstorming projects to be completed interactively, as well as a peer review process to ensure maximum interaction during the class, creating a workshop feel during the 8 weeks.  Also each week, students will have an opportunity to submit each step of their project and to receive individualized teacher feedback.  I will be available for office hours and meetings throughout the course.  At the end of the course, the students will submit a video presentation of their project board and research for group feedback, as well as interactive feedback.  

Over the course, students will learn:
Week 1-what is a history fair competition?  what are the goals?  themes?  project types?  purpose?
Week 2-how to design an experiment and narrow down a topic
Week 3-how do conduct research related to the topic
Week 4-Interview and document analysis skills
Week 5-how to present research in a written format with citations
Week 6-how to present research visually--designing a project board that is visually interesting
Week 7-how to present orally--skills to capture the audience and to present findings clearly
Week 8-final presentation of projects for group and individual feedback