WASHINGTON – C-SPAN today announced that Matthew Shimura, a 10th grade student at Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii, is a Second Prize winner in C-SPAN’s national 2013 StudentCam competition. Matthew will receive $1,500 for his documentary, “Tides of Tomorrow,” about rising sea levels and global warming, which will air on C-SPAN on April 24, 2013 at 6:50 a.m. ET.
The national competition, now in its ninth year, invites middle school (grades 6-8) and high school students (grades 9-12) to produce a five- to- eight minute documentary on a national policy issue.
This year, students were asked to answer the question, “What’s the most important issue the president should consider in 2013?” In response, C-SPAN received 1,893 video submissions from more than 3,500 students in 44 states and Washington, DC.
“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.”
Documentaries were judged by a panel of C-SPAN education representatives and evaluated 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.
For the 2013 competition, the top three most popular documentary topics were:
- Economic issues (unemployment, poverty, national debt)
- Education
- Environment (energy, global warming)
C-SPAN is funded by America’s cable television companies, which support StudentCam. In Honolulu, C-SPAN is available locally through Time Warner Cable Oceanic.
“Because education is an important part of Oceanic Time Warner Cable’s mission, we are excited to recognize Matthew Shimura on his winning documentary in this year’s annual C-SPAN StudentCam competition,” said Bob Barlow, President of Oceanic Time Warner Cable. “We are proud to partner with C-SPAN each year on this competition which allows students to think creatively about issues that affect their community and nation.”
Matthew is one of 146 students from across the country winning a total of $50,000, including one Grand Prize winner, two First Prize winners, eight Second Prize winners, 16 Third Prize winners and 48 Honorable Mentions. The 75 winning videos may be viewed at www.c-span.org/studentcam.
C-SPAN Classroom is a free membership service dedicated to supporting educators’ use of C-SPAN programming and websites in their classes or for research. Members of C-SPAN Classroom may access free Timely Teachable Videos and video clips for use in the classroom, as well as lesson plans, handouts and ways to connect with other C-SPAN Classroom members. C-SPAN Classroom has reached more than one million students since its inception in 1987. For more information on C-SPAN Classroom visit the website at https://www.c-spanclassroom.org/or follow on twitter: @CSPAN_Classroom.