MCM Student Volunteer Recognized by C-SPAN (Video)
Congratulations to Montgomery County resident and MCM volunteer Timothy Zhou for his second place middle school prize in C-SPAN’s Student Cam 2013 contest. An annual competition, C-SPAN invites middle school students (grades 6-8) and high school students (grades 9-12) to produce a five to eight minute documentary on a national issue. This year, students used cameras to answer the question, “What’s the most important issue the president should consider in 2013?”
Zhou teamed up with Katherine Wang on his winning entry: “The Federal Deficit and Debt: Darkening the Future.” You can watch it here.
Zhou is an 8th grader at Eastern Middle School who has volunteered at MCM for over a year. He’s worked with MCM’s Digital Video Camp and, most recently, helped out with MCM’s Spring Break Backpack Journalism camp.
His winning documentary will air on C-Span on April 21. There were several other winners from Eastern Middle School and Montgomery Blair High School, according to the winners list posted on C-SPAN’s website.
More than 3,500 students in 44 states and Washington, DC sent a total of 1,893 entries to C-SPAN this year — that’s nearly 60 percent more than the number of entries received in 2012. Students worked in teams or as individuals to address a wide range of public policy issues, from bullying to troop withdrawal to the national debt.
The most popular topic in 2013 was the economy. Nineteen percent of entries were about economic issues such as unemployment, poverty and the national debt, followed by education (10 percent) and environment (8 percent).
“StudentCam proves yearly that students are paying attention to the pressing issues of the day- and right now, that’s the economy,” said Joanne Wheeler, C-SPAN Vice President of Education Relations.“As the president begins his second term, students took advantage of a great opportunity to send him a public message about what is most important to them, and the winning videos are compelling.”
In addition to Grand Prize and First Prize winners, C-SPAN recognized eight 2nd prizes, 16 3rd prizes and 48 honorable mentions. Each winning video is available at C-SPAN Student Cam 2013 Winners.
The annual competition is sponsored by the C-SPAN Education Foundation Videos were evaluated by a panel of educators and C-SPAN representatives based on the thoughtful examination of the competition’s theme, quality of expression, inclusion of varying sides of the documentary’s topic, and effective incorporation of C-SPAN programming.
Timothy Zhou
Timothy Zhou and Katherine Wang
Go Tim!