Nearpod Announces Winners of First Annual ‘Celebrate Asian/Pacific American Heritage’ Contest

Nearpod, the leading instructional platform that merges formative assessment and dynamic media, today names the winner of its first annual Celebrate Asian/Pacific American Heritage Contest, Phoebe Lee. 

The Celebrate Asian/Pacific American Heritage Contest is the latest in a series of student contests created to lift underrepresented stories and BIPOC voices in American History. At the beginning of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month, students nationwide researched and wrote informational scripts honoring a historical figure, from the past or present, from the AAPI community. After reviewing over 375 script submissions, Lee’s submission was chosen to be turned into a Nearpod ‘Just a Minute’ video. 

Lee, a 4th-grader from the District of Columbia, celebrates Yuri Kochiyama in their script, a Japanese American who watched her father suffer through internment camps during World War II. Later in her life, Yuri Kochiyama went on to become a civil rights leader, fighting for equality alongside Malcolm X. She would go on to help secure reparations for Japanese-Americans internees, as well as civil liberties for other marginalized and oppressed communities.

“We were incredibly inspired by Phoebe’s work and the depth she showcased in her script. Standing out from the rest, Phoebe’s submission came to the top above finalist submissions from middle and high school students,” shared Sara Romero-Heaps, Vice President of Product Strategy at Nearpod. “We’re proud to continue expanding our contest series, creating opportunities for more students to express their creativity and voice, while highlighting BIPOC identities and history less frequently told in classrooms.” 

In addition to Lee’s script becoming a ‘Just a Minute’ video, she will also get to record a special message that will be included in the final video. ‘Just a Minute’ is a part of Nearpod Originals, a growing series of culturally relevant, standards-aligned videos that feature diverse, relatable characters and supports research-based instructional approaches. All Nearpod Originals are Interactive Videos, which turn the traditionally passive educational tool into an active learning experience for K-12 students by embedding checks for understanding, such as Open-Ended and Multiple-Choice Questions, throughout.  

Nearpod and Flocabulary remain steadfast in their commitment to shine a light on topics and figures that have historically been left out of the conversation and provide standards-aligned content that makes it easy for educators to incorporate more diverse stories into their daily lessons. 

To learn more about the winner, click here, and to use Nearpod to bring more diverse voices into your classroom, be sure to visit: nearpod.com.

About Nearpod

Nearpod offers an interactive, instructional platform that merges formative assessment and dynamic media for live and self-paced learning experiences inside and outside of the classroom. Nearpod is a device-agnostic platform that engages students with activities such as VR Field Trips, PhET simulations and Desmos, and features more than 15,000 ready-to-run interactive lessons, videos and activities created in partnership with leading brands like Common Sense Education and Smithsonian. Nearpod also offers Flocabulary, a learning platform that engages students in academically rigorous K-12 curriculum while promoting literacy through hip-hop videos. Together, Nearpod and Flocabulary reach educators in the 100 largest school districts in the US. In 2018 Nearpod was named EdTech Digest’s Company of the Year. In March of 2021 Nearpod was acquired by Renaissance, a global leader in assessment, reading and math solutions for pre-K-12 schools and districts. To learn more about Nearpod, visit www.nearpod.com. For more information about Renaissance, visit www.renaissance.com.

Contact Information

Rachel Stoczko

Communications Manager

Nearpod

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