© 2024 WMKY
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Fifth-Grade Students Reflect on Holiday Traditions in Youth Reporting Project

From left to right, top to bottom. Fifth grade Valley Elementary School students Jaiden White, Brayden Arthur, Kaydee Hill, Quade McGhee, David Jarell, Joseph Johnson, Kiuana Banks, January Hudson, Dennis Hall, Grace Harper, Jacie Wiseman, Aubree Wriston
Kara Lofton
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
From left to right, top to bottom. Fifth grade Valley Elementary School students Jaiden White, Brayden Arthur, Kaydee Hill, Quade McGhee, David Jarell, Joseph Johnson, Kiuana Banks, January Hudson, Dennis Hall, Grace Harper, Jacie Wiseman, Aubree Wriston

A dozen fifth-graders from Valley Elementary School in Fayette County have been exploring radio in a youth reporting project with health reporter Kara Lofton this semester.

The idea was to help kids learn how to ask questions about health issues in their community, while also teaching interview and reporting skills. At the end of the semester, students interviewed one another about their favorite holiday traditions. The result can be heard in the following two audio postcards. 

To make the postcards, the students were asked to write about holiday traditions using the prompts: "I feel connected to my family when..." "My favorite holiday foods are...." "My favorite holiday traditions are..." and "I feel loved or a part of my family when..."

During the semester, students also interviewed their parents, researched how to make their favorite holiday meals and practiced how to use recorders and microphones. 

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Marshall Health, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

Fifth-Grade Students Reflect on Holiday Traditions in Youth Reporting Project

Copyright 2018 West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Kara Leigh Lofton is the Appalachia Health News Coordinator at West Virginia Public Broadcasting. Previously Kara was a freelance reporter for WMRA, an affiliate of NPR serving the Shenandoah Valley and Charlottesville in Virginia. There she produced 70 radio reports in her first year of reporting, most often on health or environmental topics. One of her reports, “Trauma Workers Find Solace in a Pause That Honors Life After a Death,” circulated nationally after proving to be an all-time favorite among WMRA’s audience.