15-03-2025
Aurora student wins prize in national C-SPAN documentary contest
DENVER (KDVR) — A student from Aurora won a prize in a national C-SPAN documentary-making competition called StudentCam.
Lilyan Mauro, a student from Vista Peak Prepatory in Aurora, was listed among the honorable mentions of the competition.
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C-SPAN delivered a prompt to center the documentary around. The prompt was 'Your Message to the President: What issue is most important to you or your community?'
Mauro responded with her documentary, 'My Message to the President: A Story of Unity and Advocacy.' She produced the documentary with the help of a mentor and educator at her school, Jason Burchard, who was also recognized by C-SPAN for his advisory role in the documentary's creation.
C-SPAN said it received 1,700 documentaries from 3,500 students across 42 states and Washington D.C. The most covered topics included:
Climate, environment and land use — 11%
K-12 education policies and the cost of college — 10%
Health care and mental health — 10%
Gun violence, school safety, and firearm policies — 9%
Inflation, taxes, government spending and the economy — 9%
'Congratulations to all of the incredibly talented young students who won awards in this year's competition! Through in-depth research and interviews with an array of topical and technical experts, you have crafted short stories that capture issues of wide public interest and importance,' said C-SPAN's Director of Education Relations Craig McAndrew. 'Your documentaries set a very high bar for future StudentCam filmmakers, and you should be proud knowing your work will inspire your peers and foster thoughtful consideration from all audiences. We can't wait to see what you do next!'
C-SPAN awarded grand-prize and first-prize winners, 16 second prize winners, 32 third prize winners and 97 honorable mentions. The prizes were distributed in amounts of $1,500, $750 and $250. C-SPAN said the StudentCam competition has awarded over $1.6 million in prizes since 2004.
Mauro was awarded $250.
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During the competition, the United States was divided into three regions: the east, central and west regions where high schoolers would compete against each other at a regional level. Middle schoolers were judged on a national basis. The grand-prize winner was selected from any of the grades, 6th-12th, at a national level.
The winning documentaries can be found on the StudentCam website.
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