Bronxville High School freshmen and sophomores earned awards for their outstanding history research projects at the 2024 New York State History Day Contest, held at SUNY Oneonta on April 14. Out of 10 senior division projects, Bronxville claimed four of those spots and earned the opportunity to advance to the national competition.

“New York State History Day was an amazing experience again this year,” said teacher Dana Landesman, who oversees the program. “All of our Bronxville students represented the school so well. We couldn’t help but beam with pride. This is the largest group of student projects moving forward to the national competition than ever before.”

In addition to Landesman, members of the history department, including Chris Doyle, Eva Gambino, Steve Klurfeld and Martin Patmos, have worked tirelessly to support and motivate the students to produce outstanding work.

Multiple Foundation grants have funded visiting coaches who specialize in film, performing arts, web, and media design, enabling students to engage the world through deeply thoughtful and creative projects.

Having conducted extensive historical research on a topic of their choice, the students’ authentic work focused on this year’s theme of “Turning Points in History.” At the state competition, they were interviewed by professors and scholars and articulated what they’ve discovered through their historical research, which is displayed in either paper, website, documentary, performance or exhibit.

Congratulations to the following students who earned the top spots at the competition:

Group Exhibit

• First place: Caroline Hardart, Louise Jacobs and Virgina Shah – “Automats and American Identity: Horn and Hardart’s Impact on Culture and Social Interactions.”

Individual Exhibit

• Second place: Emerson Dennis – “Illuminated Manuscripts: Preserving and Transforming Literature through Illustrations.”

Individual Documentary

• Second place: Emma Yeon – “Twinflowers: The lives of Linnaeus and Solander as Taxonomic Turning Point.”

Paper

• Second Place: Sebastian Jew – “From Conflict to Cooperation: The 1969 Sino-Soviet Border Conflict and Sino-American Rapprochement.”

Group Documentary

• Third Place: Thomas Freeman, Nicholas Gonda, Simon Leka, John Shah, Fletcher Van Tienhoven – “Breaking Enigma: The Untold Story of Poland’s Codebreakers.”

The first- and second-place finalists have advanced to the 2024 National Contest, which will be held at the University of Maryland, College Park, from June 9-13. The third-place winners will serve as alternates.

Bronxville High School students – who have been exploring different topics in Stephen Kovari’s Bronx River Research class over the last several weeks – presented their project proposals before an audience of classmates, teachers, administrators and local experts on March 19.

“The goal is to ensure accountability of project validity and planning, and to help students refine and think through their ideas,” Kovari said. “Similarly to how researchers nearly always have to submit a proposal before receiving grant funding on a project, our students presented a proposal before being allowed to proceed with their project.”

After completing lab modules on stream flow, water chemistry, trees, macroinvertebrates, and soils, the students had the background knowledge on a wide variety of topics, and an understanding of what a good research question looks like. As a result, they developed and refined their research questions before moving on to methodology. The students’ projects focus on major themes such as fish, wildlife, vegetation, soils and water chemistry.

During his presentation, Dev Tarwala discussed how his project would focus on nitrogen’s effects on the Bronx River. During their presentation, Charlie Donohue, Erik Gjonpalaj, Charlotte Golimbu, Liam Neild, Jari Seibold and Toby Wardell discussed their projects, which aim to study the diversity, distribution, and health of the Bronx River’s fish population by collecting data on fish and comparing it to water chemistry metrics, stream flow and other physical characteristics of the river. For their projects on water chemistry, Sam Mandanas and Era Gjocaj will study fluctuations in nitrate levels in the Bronx River by site and weather conditions using LaMotte Nitrate test kits. They also aim to assess linkages between nitrate levels and other water chemistry metrics, such as pH. 

Davis Patterson and Natalie Thiessen-Rodriguez’s projects focus on the composition, nutrients and health of the Bronx River riparian area soils, their impact on vegetation, and their association with issues like erosion or invasive species. Gabbi Bicci, Mina Farhoush and Roan Merluccio’s projects will focus on how wildlife use highly fragmented, urbanized landscapes by using camera traps to study spatial and temporal activity of mammals. Another focus of the project is on bird biodiversity during the spring migration season. Sophia Richard, Taylor Sundquist and Elyse Sims’ projects will focus on invasive species, such as Japanese knotweed or honeysuckle, and their distribution and association with characteristics of the physical environment. Another focus is on tree coring and providing a past record of growth and environmental conditions at the Bronx River for a wide range of species and locations.

Bronx River research began as a Foundation grant spearheaded by two high school students and a teacher back in 2015, and it has grown into a schoolwide program of study.