Social Studies News
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McAleer new department chair
Congratulations to Suzanne McAleer, the new department chair of Social Studies!

Model UN Competition 2008
Students from Overlea attended the Model UN competition and conference at Towson University.  For the second year in a row, Overlea has dominated the field in the Position Paper writing competition, placing 2nd and 3rd in award categories.  Repeating last year's performance students placed in the top 3 and, also placed four of our papers in the final eight.

Representing the United Kingdom, Sarah K. placed 2nd and Kamala H. (author ) and Keziah B.  placed 3rd, representing Indonesia. Over 40 Position Papers from nine different schools were submitted.

Additional recognition was given to OHS students Will E., Kalabe H. and Aaron M. (best delegation - honorable mention ) representing Venezuela and Eric S. ( best speaker - honorable mention ) representing Afghanistan.  Both awards would have been a first or second place finish, as voted on by their peers, but the key participants (Will E., Kalabe H. and Eric S.) were juniors and were only eligible for the honorable mention.  Awarding an honorable mention award is new and determined by votes from the other students, as well as, input from the Secretariat of the UN ( Dr. Allison McCartney - TU).  Dr. McCartney was so impressed by their respective performances, she insisted on bestowing an honorable mention award for them.

These performances clearly illustrate the commitment of our AP students and the impact the AP program is making at Overlea.  We have once again met the 'elite' of BCPS and left the field a dominant victor.  Congratulations to student competitors:

Lauren Lydic
Model UN Advisor

Lauren Lydic
CONGRATULATIONS, Mr. Lydic! Lauren has been selected as one of three AP World History teachers to revise the BCPS AP World History curriculum.

History students reveal presidential preferences
Students in Ms. L. Brown's US History classes participated in an online survey which required them to select the political ideas closest to their own.  After answering all of the questions students received a statistical breakdown that indicated which presidential candidates best represented their interests. And, the winner is...

Civil and Human Rights activist
addresses OHS Social Studies students
Students in Mr. Lever's Government and Ms. L. Brown's US History classes participated in a talk given by Civil and Human Rights activist Joe Madison. Madison is a Radio-One WOL-AM, Washington D.C. talk radio personality who has been named one of Talker Magazine’s 100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts nine times. In addition to holding a variety of positions with the national NAACP, Mr. Madison has won numerous awards and helped force the tragedy of Darfur onto the agenda of the US politicians.

Model United Nations Conference 2007
Mr. Lydic’s Social Studies students excelled at the annual Model UN Conference. Competing against almost 100 students from 10 high schools, representing 40 countries at the conference, Overlea students took home six  awards in the competition; including finishing 1st and 2nd in the main category---position paper writing. Overlea High School captured 1/3 of the awards given, making Overlea the school with the largest number of individual winners at the conference.