SUMNER — Norliyana Menes and her team of sixth-graders at Hartford-Sumner Elementary school took second place in the group performance category at last week’s Maine National History Day competition in Augusta.

Their research project was on folk singer Pete Seeger, the 92-year-old artist known for writing some of the best known protest songs.

“We’ve heard ‘If I Had a Hammer,’ and I watched a movie with ‘We Shall Overcome,’” Menes, 12, said. During her research, she learned that Seeger is still participating in protests, the most recent being the Occupy movement.

“He’s done a lot of amazing things,” Menes said.

She and sixth-grade classmates Keara Heap, Cassandra Zak and Seneca Jacobs decided to do their competition piece on Seeger, because earlier in the school year each had done a biography of a different musician and each was linked to Seeger.

Last week’s competition drew the most participation ever, coordinator Linda Andrews, gifted and talented teacher in the Nezinscot region of RSU 10, said.

The theme was “Revolution, Reaction, Reform in History.”

More than 20 students in grades six through 10 traveled to Augusta for the competition. Projects included a play depicting the reaction to the Hitler Youth Movement written and performed by Buckfield Junior-Senior High School seventh-graders Elaine Randolph, Kali Litchfield and Katie Wescott. they took first in that category.

Another project was a website created by eighth-graders Dennis Wescott, Hunter Wiley and Jonathan Randolph on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. They took first in the website category.

Other first place local winners were:

* Sierra Wescott and Brian Miclon, both 10th graders, who wrote and performed a play on a woman who helped lead the Easter uprising in Dublin.

* Megan Salisbury, 1oth grade, who performed as model Sylvette David for cubist artist Pablo Picasso.

* Rebecca Cooper, 10th grade, who designed a display on Henry Bergh’s crusade against cruelty to animals.

Second place winners from the Nezinscot region were:

* Sixth-grader Emily Smith who performed as Frances Perkins;

* Sixth-graders Tobias Worthley and Zack Grover who created a display showing the impact of The Bank Holiday of 1933;

* Eighth-grader Joie Affleck who produced a film documentary on the impact of the Works Projects Administration.

*Eighth-graders Azalea Cornier and Jonathan Cooper who produced a website on Nikolai Tesla’s and Thomas Edison’s work on electricity.

Third place winners were:

* 10th-grader Abigail Campbell who wrote a research paper on Pete Seeger.

* Eighth-graders Reilley Hicks and Olivia Dooley who produced a radio show on the Beetles music and its impact on historical events.

* Eighth-grader Lauren Wilson who produced a website on Picasso.

Lindsy Crutchfield, a 10th-grader from Dirigo High School in Dixfield, placed second in the senior research paper division. She wrote about Dorothea Dix and her efforts to reform the care of the insane.

Andrews said next year’s theme will be “Turning Points in History.” She said many young students are already thinking about a topic for the competition