ROGERS — Broadcast and film students from Rogers and Heritage high schools learned about national television Thursday.
A tour bus from C-SPAN, the Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, brought information to the doorstep of Rogers High School in the form of a big red bus.
The C-SPAN bus tours 11 months of the year at community events and schools to educate people about the network, said Jessica Lindquist, C-SPAN marketing representative.
“The whole goal of the C-SPAN bus is to show students there is a nonpartisan source,” she said.
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Part of the C-SPAN bus tour is to recognize winners in the C-SPAN StudentCam competition. Next year’s theme will be announced in July and is open to middle and high school students. This year 75 winning documentaries were aired on C-SPAN during April. The competition offers prizes between $250 and $5,000. For more information visit www.studentcam.org.
Source: Staff Report
C-SPAN channels carry no commercials, but cable and satellite companies pay to carry the broadcasts. The long-format broadcasts make the network different, Lindquist told students.
“You will see it all,” she said.
Several students said they had never heard of the network before boarding the bus.
“At first I didn’t really understand what C-SPAN was,” said Meagan Simmon, a senior at Heritage High School.
Simmon said she likes to make documentary-style films and was interested when C-SPAN representatives talked about StudentCam, an annual video competition. Last year’s topic was a message to the president, and Simmon said she is curious to know what the next topic will be.
The competition is open to middle school and high school students, Pam McGorry, educational program specialist with C-SPAN, told students. She urged them to enter next year. Although each year has a theme, McGorry encouraged students to be inspired by their interests because that will show in their work.
“You can have a fabulous video with cool effects, but what is the message?” McGorry said.
It was the technology inside the bus that caught the attention of Derek Sallee, a Rogers High School sophomore. He was mesmerized by the bank of interactive screens, laptops, smartphones and tablets showcasing the network’s apps.
“The technology was really amazing,” Sallee said.
He also walked away thinking about C-SPAN’s archived video footage, which will give him a new website to use for school projects.
Archive clips could be used to produce videos for Advanced Placement classes like environmental science, history or world history, students said.
Students said they enjoy their media classes because they can bring issues to the forefront.
Students in Rogers know what happens in their hometown, but can miss important issues, said Karen Maldonado, a senior at Heritage. She produced a segment on Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenage girl shot for advocating for school for girls.
“We’re lucky to have an education. She had to risk her life to go to school,” Maldonado said.
School broadcasts inform other students, she said.
“We just like being heard on the topics that are important,” Maldonado said.