Elizabeth Storey, Ajla Dizdarevice and Hannah Smith qualified to compete in the National History Day state level competition, the first to do so for a Waterloo school. NHD projects require extensive research and knowledge of the topic of the student’s choice. Storey and Dizdarevice chose to present their research through the use of a display board while Smith chose to dramatize her subject – Margaret Thatcher. All participants are interviewed extensively by judges to asses their familiarity with there topics.

Central 8th grader Nathan Schmidt has always been interested in science and has envisioned a career as an engineer. His insatiable curiosity to discover how things work has led him to a most unusual hobby – researching and building his own Tesla Coil.

Although the building portion of Nathan’s project took the last 3-6 months, his research started when he was a sixth grader. As a helper in the library he often spoke about his ideas – the Tesla coil being just one of them. On April 16, Nathan had the opportunity to display and demonstrate his work in the library. Many students who do not already know Nathan were surprised he is “one of us”. As one student put it “this science stuff is where it is at”.

Congratulations to Nathan for realizing a dream through hard work, perseverance and determination!