LIHUE — Three Kauai High School media students recently visited New Jersey and New York for an all-expense paid Winner’s Weekend celebration.
The junior students — Tiffany Sagucio, Brandon Marcos and Micah Matsunaga — were one of three high school teams and three middle school teams being nationally recognized for video productions submitted to Kid Witness News, a global video education program supported by Panasonic with the aim of boosting creativity and fostering teamwork.
“This year, we submitted one of our videos, called ‘A Special Piece of Home,’” Marcos said. “We were aware that a lot of our friends were going off to college, and we wanted to create a video that showed off the emotions that they would be going through and also how, no matter where they go to, there’s always that special token they take with them whenever they leave home.”
For the video, Sagucio used a shell she found on the beach to represent that special token. She brought her piece of home to the Winners Weekend trip.
“Over the weekend we got to go to the Statue of Liberty, see the ‘Lion King’ on Broadway, and we went to the Today Show and got to participate and take a tour of the NBC Studio,” Sagucio said.
The students toured Panasonic Headquarters and created glass-blown beads in New Jersey at Glass Roots, the company commissioned to design the video competition trophies for the six schools.
“It definitely made me want to do it again next year. I’ve gotten motivation to produce a better video than what we did this year,” Matsunaga said. “We made really good friends up there too.”
Accompanying teacher Leah Aiwohi helped students understand media literacy, which led them to participating in a successful student news network. The Kauai High School teacher was recently selected to the Public Broadcasting Service Digital All-Stars Team.
“It helps us to realize what areas we need to improve in to be able to compete at an international level,” Aiwohi said. “This year is only our second year participating.”
