Six classes at Omaha’s Lewis and Clark Middle School are learning civic engagement through a PBS NewsHour project.
The seventh and eighth-grade students are taking part in the Student Reporting Labs initiative. Through the program, students create a video on a topic chosen by PBS.
Holly Ortega, who teaches seventh and eighth grade service learning at Lewis and Clark, says the student projects focus on what they can do to ensure racial equality and justice.
"So students are involved in every aspect of production. They conduct research, they go out and have interviews with students and staff, they have to upload, edit, and then produce these final videos all around that topic."
Ortega says students learn good writing, critical thinking, and communication skills from the project. A group of teachers will choose the top three videos based on quality and PBS criteria. The videos are then sent to PBS, and reviewed for possible use on NewsHour.
Lewis and Clark Middle School is the first school in Nebraska to participate in the program.