Students at Long Beach Polytechnic High School won prizes for documentaries in C-SPAN’s national 2019 StudentCam competition, it was announced Thursday.
Hamid Torabzadeh, Katherine Padilla and Pia Hao will receive $1,500 as second-prize winners for their documentary, “Retained by the People: The Promise of America,” about the Ninth Amendment. Their winning video will air April 14 on C-SPAN at 3:50 a.m. Pacific time and throughout the day.
Grant Atwood, Justin Rosu and Jacob Jacoub will receive $250 as honorable mention winners for their documentary, “We Didn’t All Come on the Mayflower,” about immigration.
Samantha Williams and Inanna Khansa will receive $250 as honorable mention winners for their documentary, “The Press and the People.”
Audrey Song will receive $250 as an honorable mention winner for the documentary, “One Person, One Vote,” about voter representation.
Each year since 2006, Washington, D.C.-based C-SPAN partners with its local cable television providers nationwide to invite middle and high school students to produce short documentaries about a subject of national importance.
This year students addressed the theme, “What does it mean to be American? Choose a constitutional right, national characteristic, or historic event and explain how it defines the American experience.”
In response, a record 6,318 students (a 10 percent increase over 2018) from 48 states and Washington, D.C., participated.
The most popular topics among the 2,923 submissions included First Amendment rights (17 percent), equality/discrimination (13 percent) and immigration (9 percent).
The Long Beach winners are among 340 students across the country winning a total of $100,000.
There are one grand prize winner, four first prize winners, 16 second prize winners, 32 third prize winners and 97 honorable mentions.
This year C-SPAN marks its 15th year of the competition and awards its 1 millionth dollar in StudentCam prize money.
The 150 winning videos can be viewed at www.studentcam.org.