Three Eastern Middle School students won first place in this year’s StudentCam national video documentary competition open to students in grades 6-12 contest. Over 5,300 students participated in the competition which was organized by C-SPAN television network. Students were asked to create a 5-6 minute-long documentary that addressed the theme, “What’s Your Vision in 2020?” on the issue they wanted the presidential candidates to address. More than 2,500 documentaries were submitted to C-SPAN.
Marissa Boucher, Yuna Chun and Defne Ustundag, students at Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring, won first prize in the middle school division. They will share $3,000 for the documentary, “Blackout: Misinformation in the Age of Social Media.” This documentary will air on C-SPAN at 6:50 a.m. ET and throughout the day on April 17.
WATCH: 8th graders Marissa Boucher, Yuna Chun & Defne Ustundag won 1st Prize in the Middle School category for their documentary, "Blackout: Misinformation in the Age of Social Media" https://t.co/CCZ6xG5Ban pic.twitter.com/DggwaOJ69w
— StudentCam (@StudentCam) March 11, 2020
In addition to the grand prize and first prize winners, C-SPAN awarded 16 second prizes, 32 third prizes and 97 honorable mention prizes. These winning videos will receive cash awards of $1,500, $750 and $250, respectively.
Montgomery Blair High School seniors Lintaro Donovan and Young-Bin Lee won a second place prize in the high school east division for their “Democracy Must Be Learned: Civics Education and Youth Engagement” video. This documentary will air on C-SPAN at 6:50 a.m. ET and throughout the day on April 16. The two students will receive $1,500 as one of this year’s 2nd Prize winners
Roberto Middle School students Soumya Jailwala and Anna Srey produced and published a video titled “DACA: The Dreamers of America” It and three other submissions won second place for the middle school division.
Congrats to 2nd Prize winning 8th graders Soumya Jailwala & Anna Srey from Roberto Clemente Middle School in Germantown, Maryland. The duo won for their documentary, "DACA: The Dreamers of America", and it airs today on C-SPAN. Watch it here: https://t.co/7ijg3xozXv pic.twitter.com/i6DaRkoOzy
— StudentCam (@StudentCam) April 5, 2020
Derek Mu and Jonathan Fan, eighth-graders from Takoma Park Middle School also won second place for the middle school division for their video titled “The Price of Life“.
County Executive Marc Elrich congratulates the winners in this short video:
C-SPAN awarded eight third place prize winners for the high school east division. Montgomery County students won half of the winning spots. Their videos include:
- Montgomery Blair High School students Clara Rayburn and Celeste Basken produced their video titled “Seeds of Change: Protecting Agriculture from the Changing Climate“
- Montgomery Blair High School students Emmanuel Kraft, Michael Dinkel and Liam Volz produced their winning video titled “Homeless Not Hopeless“
- Ninth-graders Kaitlyn Li and Ida Chen from Winston Churchill High School won for their video “The Price We Pay“
- Richard Montgomery High School ninth-graders Allison Fan and Evelyn Shue’s video titled “Broken“
C-SPAN awarded eight third prize winners for the middle school division. Three of the eight winners were from schools in Montgomery County. Their videos include:
- Eastern Middle School eighth-graders Annie Guo, Mandy Guo and Josephine Panner won for their video titled “A Growing Disconnect: Modern Hate Groups in America“
- Jonah Arbolino and Martine Panner, Eastern Middle School eighth-graders produced the video titled “1.6 Trillion Dollars: The Student Debt Sentence“
- Eastern Middle School eighth-graders Megan Cox and Katherine Pease produced the video titles “Gerrymandering: Silencing America’s Democracy“
During the month of April, C-SPAN will air all the winning videos.
The entire list of StudentCam prize winners, including 18 honorable mentions, may be viewed here.
