Huntington Duo Wins Long Island History Day Awards

Huntington High School junior Nataly Posada is headed to the State History Day championship round in Oneonta after her Individual Website category entry won first place at the Long Island regional finals at Hofstra University last weekend. Award winners were announced Tuesday afternoon.

Ms. Posada spent weeks developing her project, which she titled "A New Deal for America: How did Social Security Redefine Government's Role?" Click on this link to explore the award winning website: https://site.nhd.org/43639818/home.

State History Day is set for April 26 at SUNY Oneonta. The top finishers in each category will advance to the national finals at the University of Maryland, College Park on June 14-18.

This year’s National History Day theme is “Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History.” The annual history initiative seeks to make history more relevant for students and requires them to use a variety of practical and creative skills during the development of their projects.

Ms. Posada, who is currently studying with social studies teacher Kenneth Donovan, said she conducted research by gathering information from multiple sources. “My main sources were President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s fireside chat about Social Security and government records from the Social Security Administration,” she wrote in the process paper accompanying the website. “I also reviewed historical websites and documents that explained how the Great Depression affected American families and why a program like Social Security was needed. Finding sources that described the creation of the Social Security Act, the debates in Congress, and the impact it had on workers and seniors was crucial to my research. I made sure my information was accurate and reliable by comparing details from multiple sources to confirm that they matched.”

Ms. Posada noted that prior to enactment of the Social Security Act, most Americans 65 and older lived in poverty and lacked a financial safety net.

Social Security was a direct reaction to the Great Depression's widespread poverty and unemployment. Before 1935, most Americans over 65 lived in poverty with no safety net.

“President Roosevelt's New Deal showed government intervention was necessary to protect citizens during the economic crisis,” wrote Ms. Posada in the process paper.

Huntington freshman Elena Prior garnered the Mike D’Innocenzo Outstanding Entry on Long Island History Award for her Individual Exhibit category project titled “Three Wrongs That Made Rights: Huntington, Long Island - - Evidence Behind the Protections of the Bill of Rights.” She is currently studying with teacher Debora Balducci.

“Her topic and her individual exhibit portrayed the early (1770s) American experience here in Huntington of British violations of our local ancestor rights, and how these experiences led to the inclusion in the US Constitution's Bill of Rights certain treasured rights, like ‘no quartering of soldiers’ and ‘no taking of property without compensation,” said Joseph Leavy, Huntington UFSD’s chairman of social studies, 7-12.

Huntington Superintendent Beth McCoy announced the awards at Tuesday night’s Huntington Board of Education meeting in the Jack Abrams STEM Magnet School auditorium.