Utah's National History Day (Season 3, Ep. 10)

**Brad Westwood** (0:09)
Welcome to the podcast Speak Your Piece. This is a podcast about Utah's history produced by the Utah Department of Culture and Community Engagement. I'm Brad Westwood, Senior Public Historian. My job is to make the very best, the most interesting and the most accurate history about Utah accessible to the widest audience. If there's one place, one podcast to get your Utah history fix, I hope this is the place.
Today, we're speaking to two young historians and Utah Statewide National History Day Program Coordinator, Dr. Wendy Rex Atzet, the State Coordinator for National History Day in Utah, which belongs to the Utah Division of State History. This is a statewide program and she is joining me as co-producer of this episode.
Wendy has more than 10 years experience managing National History Day programs both in Colorado and in Utah. Good morning and welcome, Wendy. Thanks, Brad. Good to have you here. Wendy, knowing we will say more later in a sentence, what is National History Day? I've heard it called Utah History Day, Utah History Fair. What is it in a sentence?

**Wendy Rex-Atzet** (1:31)
National History Day in Utah has been operating in the state since 1980 and we're part of an international program that helps kids learn how to do history, not just memorize facts.

**Brad Westwood** (1:46)
Wow, wonderfully said. Wendy is passionate about helping young people connect with history through hands-on relevant learning experience. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder where she specialized in culture and environmental history of the American West.
She holds an MA in history from San Diego State University and a BA in communications from the University of Utah. Wendy and I are joined by two other guests, Cami Yuan and Acacia Yuan, who are sisters from Logan, Utah who have become young historians in their own right through Utah National History Day program.
Cami attended Logan High School and Acacia attends Middle School at Thomas Edison Charter School. Hello, you two, how are you?

**Camellia and Acacia Yuan** (2:38)
We're doing good, thank you, sir.

**Brad Westwood** (2:40)
So good to have you here. You know, it's the weather such as it is, the smoke. We've all sat in the studio this morning and we're coughing and hoarse and so on, so thanks so much. Let's hug up to the mics as we speak.
Now, you two have been doing a lot of fun things. In one sentence, tell me what you have done in the last two or three years with Utah History Day.

**Camellia and Acacia Yuan** (3:09)
I think in one sentence, I can confidently say that we've both researched so, so, so much on not only history from the United States, but also history in China as well. And I think that kind of led us to have new experiences and look at things from different perspectives in ways that National History Day could only do.

**Brad Westwood** (3:39)
That's wonderful.

**Camellia and Acacia Yuan** (3:41)
I will say it has been very fun because we can meet lots of new people, travel to different places, and overall, everyone has been super nice.

**Brad Westwood** (3:57)
Wonderful. Wendy, will you tell us more about these two and what they have accomplished?

**Wendy Rex-Atzet** (4:03)
Well, for the last three academic years, Cami and Acacia have worked together creating historical documentaries as part of the NHD Utah program, and they have created award-winning projects for those last three years.
This program is really very hands-on, and our goal is to give students the skills and the tools that they need to do real historical research. They learn how to identify credible information on the web, how to find primary sources and analyze them, build a strong understanding of historical context, as they mentioned, look at things from multiple perspectives, and how to make an argument based on evidence, based on historical evidence that they have found in their research. And then our students present their work in a series of tournaments that happen in the spring every year. And they can present as documentary films. We have other students that do performances, museum-style exhibits, websites or papers.

**Brad Westwood** (5:08)
So there's all kinds of different forms that they can take to share their history.

**Wendy Rex-Atzet** (5:13)
That's right.

**Brad Westwood** (5:14)
Cami and Acacia, how did you first get involved in History Day? Was it through a teacher or school or just how?

**Camellia and Acacia Yuan** (5:24)
For me, I first started in 2017 at my middle school.
I went to Mount Logan Middle School in Logan where we had a relatively small club dedicated to National History Day. And thanks to my history teacher at the time, Ms. Wendy Lizenby, she got a grant that year and decided to coach us for the National History Day competition right before her retirement. Now, I was always interested in history growing up, so having a club solely dedicated to researching historical events and figures sounded pretty fun to me. I don't know, I was kind of a weird kid. But anyways, after my first year, I fell in love with it and continued to do so up to this day for about five years now, I think.