Winners revealed for PBS NewsHour Extra’s #MyZeitgeist competition

NewsHour Extra, the NewsHour’s educational resource site for teachers, challenged students to tell the story of 2014 using news literacy skills and digital storytelling tools. Now in its second year, the #MyZeitgeist competition drew nearly 1,000 students to create a project inspired by Google’s annual review. They used multimedia platforms Trio and Meograph to combine video, photographs, maps and music in order to share 2014’s most important moments. On Tuesday’s NewsHour, we talked to three students about what events were most notable to them and how young people get their news.

Now we share our two winning submissions:

Evan Williams of T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Virginia, received the first place prize for Meograph submissions. His entry highlighted the courage, talent and strength of individuals who were at the core of some of the year’s big events.

Parneet Sandhu from Thomas Russell Middle School in Milpitas, California, took the first place prize for Trio submissions. Sandhu’s entry used bold graphics and music to call out events of global importance in 2014.

Students also discussed the events of 2014 on Twitter with NewsHour Extra and KQED’s Do Now social media conversation. Join in the conversation in the comments or on Twitter using #MyZeitgeist, and check out the second and third-place winners here.

Malala’s inspirational courage in trying to bring educational gender equality is inspiring worldwide. @KQEDedspace #boydbence #myzeitgeist

— Brendon Wu (@BrendonWu_) December 13, 2014

#myzeitgeist #boydbence @KQEDedspace Ferguson really impacted the world. It shows that when there is injustice, people won’t leave it alone.

— Arianna Tejada (@atejada94) December 10, 2014

@KQEDedspace The event that affected the world the most was when more than 200 girls and women were abducted in Nigeria. #MyZeitgeist

— Monét (@19mlam) December 11, 2014

@KQEDedspace #SchumMHHS #MyZeitgeist The Ferguson shooting and riots were important as it let us think how racism might affect our actions.

— Brian T. (@BrainT1233) December 8, 2014

@KQEDedspace @AHA_Lev Emma Sulkowicz protest and the support she recieved was important to me http://t.co/b7UKKkN43X #MyZeitgeist

— Bella Devito (@AHA_BellaDevito) December 9, 2014