C-SPAN To Visit Mountain View, Honor Student Documentary Winners

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — C-SPAN will visit Mountain View this week to honor two students for their prize-winning entries in C-SPAN's annual student video documentary competition, StudentCam.

Isaac Graham Newton Middle School eighth-grader Meital Zayats won first prize and $3,000 cash for the video, "Beyond Just Sc-Fi: AI Reshaping America's Tomorrow."

Mountain View High School sophomore Rani Sindledecker won second prize and $1,500 cash for the video, "Mentally Educated."

C-SPAN and Comcast representatives are scheduled to join the community in recognizing the winning students at an assembly Wednesday of classmates, teachers, family members and elected officials.

While in the Bay Area, C-SPAN will also visit winners at Menlo School in Atherton, Heritage High School in Brentwood, and Palo Alto High School in Palo Alto.

Brendan Giang, Emily Tang and Max Reiter, sophomores at Palo Alto High School, won first prize and $3,000 cash for their video, "Threads of Change" on the impact of fast fashion.

Each of these teams made up of juniors at Palo Alto High School won an honorable mention and $250 cash:

• Briar Dorogusker, Tyler Kramer and Micah Rege for the video, "The United States Prison Problem."
• Kristine Lin, Sam Ewen and Vienn Sheng for the video, "The Issue of Social Media."
• Juliana Sandoval, Kalia Wooden and Aiden Murphy for the video, "Sea Level Rise: Our Coast, Our Nation."
• Maya Dakua, Gabe Boudtchenko and Faizan Kashmiri for the video, "Well Deserved Water."
• Milo Sabina and Gin Williams for the video, "Redlining: Dividing America."

Menlo School senior Alexander Boesch and junior Oliver Boesch won an honorable mention and $250 cash for their video, "Why Affordable Housing is so Difficult in California."

Matthew Schnaider, Kyan Wai and Amy Ordaz, seniors at Heritage High School in Brentwood, won an honorable mention and $250 cash for their video, "FDA Regulation."

The Bay Area students were among 3,200 nationwide who participated in this year's contest. C-SPAN received over 1,600 entries from 42 states and Washington, D.C.

C-SPAN is a commercial-free public service funded by America’s cable television companies. In the Bay Area, C-SPAN is available locally through Comcast. C-SPAN and its cable partners celebrated the 20th anniversary of the StudentCam competition by asking students to address the theme, "Looking Forward while Considering the Past."

"In recognition of the 20th anniversary of C-SPAN's StudentCam competition, this year we asked students to either look 20 years into the future or to reflect on a topic of importance to them and its past," said Craig McAndrew, director of C-SPAN Education Relations. "Students have skillfully blended their perspectives with in-depth research and an array of expert interviews, and we are thrilled to share their accomplishments with their local communities, and the nation."

For this year's competition, C-SPAN awarded one grand prize, four first prizes, 16 second prizes, 32 third prizes and 97 honorable mention prizes. These winning videos will receive cash awards of $5,000, $3,000, $1,500, $750 and $250, respectively. That's a total of $150,000 in prizes.

In the last two decades, over 63,000 students and 20,000 teachers have participated in the StudentCam competition and C-SPAN has awarded over $1.5 million in prizes.

"For two decades, StudentCam has served as a catalyst for inspiring young minds to think critically about issues that are important to them and we at Comcast are proud to be a part of that legacy," said Beth Hester, external affairs vice president, Comcast, California Region. "We congratulate these talented students on this outstanding achievement in the 2024 competition."

See all the winning videos from this year's competition at StudentCam.org.