Every year in Mr. Scanlon’s DE US Government class, students submit short documentaries for a quarter-long project to a national competition from C-SPAN. The competition is called StudentCam, and tasks middle and high school students to produce short documentaries that follow a specific prompt; this year, it was “Your message to the President.” The rules are simple: five to six minutes, includes live interviews, has a central theme, and is made by no more than three students. The entries are submitted in mid-January, and winners are announced in mid-March, and there are a lot. 

There is one grand prize winner, and from there, the winners are split up regionally (East, West, Central, and Middle School). For each division, there is one first-place winner, four second-place winners, and eight third-place winners. Additionally, there are 97 honorable mentions. 

This year, two teams from Mr. Scanlon’s classes won awards! Cody Finnegan and Mae Seward’s video about the teen drug crisis won third place in the East division, and Lukas Korcinskis, Caroline Schwebach, and Maggie Odar’s video about accessible healthcare received an honorable mention! 

This is the largest number of awards that have come from ACC students in years, and the community is overjoyed. Plus, the Chronicle staff is proud that two of our senior journalists, myself included, are represented among them. We’re looking forward to seeing what ACC can do next year.