East Lyme, Niantic Students Recognized In C-SPAN Contest

From C-SPAN: C-SPAN announced that students in Niantic and East Lyme, Connecticut are honorable mention winners in C-SPAN’s national 2018 StudentCam competition.

Sachi Vora, a student at East Lyme Middle School, will receive $250 for her video, "Passing the Torch," about tolerance, discrimination, and equality.

Kevin Hricko, Maddie Foerster and Nick Tricarico, students at East Lyme High School, will receive $250 for their video, "Promoting the General Welfare: The Past, Present, and Future of American Agriculture."

Each year since 2006, C-SPAN partners with its local cable television providers in communities nationwide to invite middle school students (grades 6-8) and high school students (grades 9-12) to produce short documentaries about a subject of national importance. This year students addressed the theme, “The Constitution & You: Choose a provision of the U.S. Constitution and create a video illustrating why it's important to you."

In response, C-SPAN received a record 2,985 video submissions from over 5,700 students in 46 states and Washington, D.C. Students worked in teams or as individuals to address a wide range of public policy issues, from the freedoms of the First Amendment and the right to bear arms, to equality and the powers of Congress.

"With so much national debate about government power and personal freedoms, we were eager to hear students' perspectives on what the Constitution means to them," said C-SPAN's Manager of Education Relations Craig McAndrew. "Students across the country engaged in conversation on the local level with elected officials, experts, community leaders and educators to explore how national issues impact their daily lives."

The most popular provisions of the Constitution explored by students were the First Amendment (26 percent), followed by the Second Amendment (16 percent) and the 14th Amendment (11 percent).

C-SPAN is funded by America’s cable television companies, which support StudentCam. In Niantic and East Lyme, C-SPAN is available locally through Atlantic Broadband.

"Atlantic Broadband is pleased to partner with C-SPAN on their annual documentary contest, StudentCam, and we are thrilled to congratulate our local winners Sachi, Kevin, Maddie and Nick. Education has always been important to Atlantic Broadband, and we are proud to work with C-SPAN as they continue to offer educational opportunities to young leaders to learn more about our democracy and to give voices to their own insights and opinions," said Chap Hanley, Vice President General Manager.

These winners are among more than 300 students across the country winning a total of $100,000, including one grand-prize winner, four first-prize winners, 16 second-prize winners, 32 third-prize winners and 97 honorable mentions.

The 150 winning videos may be viewed here and may be used in a broadcast with attribution to C-SPAN. To schedule an interview with one or more of the winning students, please contact Pam McGorry at pmcgorry@c-span.org.

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.

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