SOUTH BEND — Equipped with a love of history and a little creativity, 19 groups of Edgewood Middle School eighth-grade students recently participated in the regional National History Day competition in South Bend.

According to Michael Howard, eighth-grade history teacher at EMS, the history department has been involved in project based learning for quite some time.

“We decided to incorporate the NHD component into our curriculum four years ago,” states Howard. “We have every eighth-grade student participate in the project. They all research, write and give a presentation at the conclusion of the project.”

Howard noted though students are not required to participate in the actual competition, student interest has risen over the past few years. This year, 71 students in 19 groups participated.

“The students work in class and have weekly checkpoints but there is a great deal of out-of-class time required especially by the groups heading to the district competition,” explained Howard.

The students this year had to face the obstacle of the weather.

“With Warsaw being out of school the last three days before the competition, students were coming into the school to get their displays and work on them at home. They went the extra mile and it paid off for the teams this year,” said Howard.

Among the top performing teams were two that tied for third place, presenting projects on the Underground Railroad and World War II experiments. One EMS team took first place with a project on the Fugitive Slave Acts.

EMS won the competition in 2104, 2015 and now in 2016, and has sent multiple teams to the state competition each of those years. Additionally, EMS has won and placed runner-up at the state competition in 2014 and 2015, earning the privilege of representing Indiana at the national competition in Washington, D.C.