As we announced a couple weeks ago, thanks to Changemaker Members and donors, we are able to provide 450 Santa Cruz middle and high school teachers with full access to Lookout at no cost to them … and the cohort is filling up quickly! If you are or know a secondary teacher who values local news and media literacy, please share this link with them to sign up ASAP.
Since October 2022, Lookout’s classroom initiative, Lookout in the Classroom, has allowed students and teachers in Santa Cruz County to incorporate local news into their learning at school. This project, Lookout for Teachers, offers free, unlimited access to the fact-based local journalism of Lookout Santa Cruz AND curated classroom resources including quizzes, lesson guides, discussion prompts and media literacy lesson plans. Lookout is devoted to contributing to both a current and future Santa Cruz County of well-informed, civically educated voters and community members. Initiatives for Santa Cruz County students are a vital part of this. Currently, over 300 teachers have joined, and we welcome any secondary teacher to sign up now, or tell any secondary teachers you know about this offer! Secondary teachers can sign up with the link on this page.
The deadline for Lookout Santa Cruz’s Student Journalism Scholarship is creeping closer, but there is still time to apply – almost three weeks!
Students are encouraged to write their own take on Lookout’s “Unsung Santa Cruz” series by profiling a local force of positive change. This scholarship is not only for aspiring writers or journalists, but also for students pushing themselves to try something new or engage with the community. ANY high school student in Santa Cruz County is encouraged to apply.
Submissions will be reviewed by our editors, and the top 10 authors will be published on the Lookout website under “Student Stories.” The top three will win $500 for an educational purchase, be it a computer, software, books, college applications, college visits, etc.
Detailed entry requirement details and instructions for submission can be found here.
The piece must be a profile about a local “unsung hero,” have a word count from 500 to 900 words and contain quotes from an interview with the main subject, preferably quotes from another interview with a secondary person and at least one supporting photo. The deadline for submission is Feb. 16.
From a drummer who’s toured the world and has settled back in Santa Cruz to teach and inspire future drummers, to a doctor who shows an unwavering dedication to improving the lives of her patients in any way she can through both her medical practice as an OB-GYN and her volunteer work, past winning student submissions (which you can read here) have underscored the range of ways in which we can be local “heroes.”
As an education intern here at Lookout, I am excited to start reading insightful new submissions full of students’ unique voices and reflections and to learn about pillars of our community I might not have known about before.