By Nigel Maxwell

Local schools take on $10,000 video challenge

Jun 4, 2018 | 12:00 PM

A contest offering a $10,000 grand prize has caught the attention of several schools in the Prince Albert area.

The Student Project, created by the Saskatchewan Teachers Federation, is an open contest for K-12 students across the province. The students were challenged to submit a four-minute video explaining what makes their school special. The grand prize for the video with the most views by June 11 is $10,000. John Diefenbaker has been among the schools which have answered the call so far, and if they win Vice-principal Tammie Horan said the prize money will likely be used to bring new technology into the classrooms.

“The kids would get to decide but I’m thinking they would probably spend it on more technology at the school,” she said.

The students at John Diefenbaker have been challenged this school year to do more reading. In their video, the students talk about why literacy is so important and the fun approach they have taken at their school to encourage more students to read.

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Wesmor Community High School also submitted a video for the contest. Unlike John Diefenbaker’s video, the Wesmor video has no spoken dialogue but rather plays out like a 1980’s video game and describes a student-driven support group, peer mentors, and the success of the Students Against Drinking and Driving (SADD) council. 

Teacher Colette Daelick said the students had lots of ideas for the video.

“We brainstormed all the ways that Wesmor is special,” she said, “and we had to try and narrow it down because they had quite a list and I said ‘you only have four minutes.’”

Much like John Diefenbaker, Daelick said one of the ideas pitched if Wesmor won was more technology at the school like laptops.

In addition to the $10,000 grand prize, the contest also offers $7,500 gold star prize. All the schools who have submitted videos by the entry deadline will be entered into a draw. Other participating schools from the Prince Albert and Parkland regions include Vincent Massey, Ecole Valois, Big River Public School and Canwood Public School. The winner will be announced June 13.

nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell