The award is in honor of the eighth graders, Max Blumberg, Shan Jiang and Tiffany Cioppi, all 14, and their documentary entitled “Intelligent Design” as part of C-SPAN’s “StudentCam” video contest.
Their ten-minute film is meant to show the controversy that is ongoing about the divisive hypothesis, which says that all life was the result of some ultimate “designer.”
“You’ll be amazed how much time goes into something like this,” said Heather Krieger, a teacher in the school’s gifted and talented program, in the Buffalo News. “They had a lot more video than the 10 minutes. The research that goes into this is incredible.”
C-SPAN runs the contest annually and encourages middle school and high school students to create documentaries based on political topics. Interested applicants would then use C-SPAN programming to create the films.
This year, the contest had 250 entries, where judges selected 45 winners. The three students from Heim Middle School, located in Williamsville, N.Y., just outside Buffalo, N.Y., were among 14 other third-place recipients. They will receive $500 which they can split three ways.
The film’s specific theme was whether or not intelligent design should be taught in school. Schools all over the nation have had to confront this issue, and there has been no clear answer.
“This year’s subject was much more controversial, and there are many sides to it,” explained Blumberg in the Buffalo News. “Last year’s was more one-sided – everybody interviewed was against illegal music downloads.”
For their project, the students interviewed three people about the issue who may have differing opinions. The respondents included their teacher Krieger; Anthony Cioppi, a priest at the New Apostolic Church and father of Tiffany; and Tom Bird, the science intuitionalist specialist for the town’s schools. They began filming at the start of the year and completed everything sometime in March.
“Intelligent Design” will air at 6:50 a.m. on May 21. The video can be also be viewed online anytime at studentcam.org.
