FEATURED TOPIC:  The Children’s Museum & Uptown Waterloo

When the call went out for volunteers for Our Town:  Kitchener/Waterloo Kevin Watt approached WNED, looking to involve his class of enriched students from Waterloo’s Centennial school.

“They're a very hardworking class and would create the whole show for you if they were allowed to -- theme song and all!” Kevin boasted. “They're all very excited to be working with WNED on this new adventure.  It works well because we're setting up a celebration of Waterloo's 150th anniversary this year.  It’s a celebration of Waterloo in our school and something we can show the community as well."

The group of enthusiastic 12 and 13-year-olds spent a day with WNED’s producers learning production techniques and brainstorming topics for the program.  Splitting into two groups, they chose the Waterloo Regional Children’s Museum and Uptown Waterloo as their topics.
Each of the students had a hand in the production, taking turns acting as producers, directors and videographers.   

“The Children’s Museum is a really good place for young children to go to—there’s a lot of really fun hands on exhibits, “said Laura Kim.  “Most of the people in our class have been there before, so we all kind of knew that we could do a lot of fun things with it and have a lot of fun while shooting there.”

Students exploring uptown Waterloo took a look at the area from a teenager’s point of view, including a trip to the library, a mystery book store and a gelateria.  They also embraced the history of the area.   “Uptown Waterloo holds a lot of the heritage in Waterloo because that’s basically where the city started,” Kira Scheffelmeier noted. “I love the architecture around King Street and how they still have a lot of the original buildings.”

When the students first learned about the project their only complaint was "awe, we don't get to edit it ourselves?"  With that spirit, the class began working on additional stories that will become DVD extras which they will shoot and edit themselves.

"This is really exciting," said Kerri Lee, 13. "We want to let lots of people know about Our Town Waterloo.

"We want to show people that Waterloo is really exciting, while also discovering lots of new things about it while we do this project."