Thank you for being part of our Hawaiʻi History Day community! Hawaiʻi History Day helps our young people engage with history on a deeper and richer level and as judges you are promoting these connections that will shape their lives into the future. Here you can find links to guides that help explain the judging process.
Priority Links
New 2025 Theme Resources
- 2024-2025 Theme Sheet | Mākia o ka Makahiki 2025: Nā Pono & Nā Kuleana ma ka Mōʻaukala
- Full 2024-2025 NHDⓇ History Day Theme Book
Before the Fairs: Signing Up and Registering
- 2025 Judge Handbook: New for 2025. This handbook is a one-stop shop for judge resources.
- Registering as a Judge in the NHDⓇ system
Training and Contest Judging Resources
- NHDⓇContest Rulebook
- NHDⓇAI Rules and Guidelines
- Community Award List
- Community Awards Video
- Evaluation Guide
- Evaluation Comment Starters
- Sample Interview Questions
After the Fairs
Hawaiʻi History Day Categories Evaluation Forms
- Documentary Evaluation Form | Kiʻiʻoniʻoni
- Exhibit Evaluation Form | Hōʻikeʻike
- Paper Evaluation Form | Pepa
- Performance Evaluation Form | Hana Keaka
- Website Evaluation Form | Kaha Pūnaewele
Thank you so much again for your time, energy, and support. See you soon!
Videos for Judges
Our judge videos are delivered by Honolulu Community College Professor Cynthia Smith, a long time Hawaiʻi History Day consultant. We hope these video resources can help judges with the different components of judging in Hawaiʻi History Day. Please keep in mind that these videos have been last edited in 2022-2023, and some changes have been made for 2024-2025. However, these videos are still useful resources on the judging process.
The following video gives a basic overview of Hawaiʻi History Day and your role in this program.
As mentioned in the above video, Hawaiʻi History Day has 5 categories: Essays, Websites, Exhibits, Documentary Videos, and Performance. Click on the category to download a pdf specifying judging criteria for each medium.
In part 2 of our video series, you can find out about your responsibilities as a judge.
We removed parts 3 and 4, as we changed our format this year. You can skip ahead!
We all love feedback, right? Not really. Many of us have a really hard time hearing criticism, even when it is meant to be constructive and a number of our participants are as young as 9 years old. How can we give critique that is genuine, yet compassionate? Professor Smith gives you some criteria for feedback in part 5.
Everything has rules. Hawaiʻi History Day has them too. Watch part 6 to get a solid understanding or rule compliance.
Hawaiʻi History Day participants have to deal with a lot of different components as part of their projects. Part 7 gives an overview of how to approach some of those components, like bibliographies and process papers.
Because feedback is a critical aspect of the Hawaiʻi History Day program, you can find out more about this process in part 8.
In part 9 of our video series, find out more resources that are available to you as a Hawaiʻi History Day judge.
Last but not least, please see this video on how to register in the NHD system and how to use the NHD judge portal to evaluate Hawaiʻi History Day Projects.
*Click here for pdf formatted instructions
*Thank you to Professor Smith for taking the time to script and narrate these videos and to Dorian Langi for editing them. Shout out to Windward Community College for lending their studio space for filming.