2018 JEA美国高中生传媒竞赛（秋季竞赛）于11月4日在芝加哥市落下帷幕，全球的6366名选手齐聚Wind City。黄楚涵同学在比赛中荣获JEA Excellent的奖项。

JEA(Journalism Education Association)主办的美国高中生传媒竞赛是中学生新闻传媒领域最权威的赛事，不仅是美国最大的中学生传媒竞赛，同时也是美国中学校长协会推荐学生中学阶段参加的竞赛。

截止目前，JEA及该比赛已经培养了近百位普利策奖得主。竞赛每年春季和秋季各举办一次，其证书受到全美各个院校的高度认可。

JEA比赛按照绝对标准评奖，分为superior、excellent和honorable mention三个级别，参赛选手的作品优秀，即可拿到奖项。

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接下来，和大家分享黄楚涵同学的参赛经历：

整个会议以及比赛分为四天，第一天是pre-convention workshop，每个同学可以选择自己感兴趣的工作坊进行各式的活动。 我选择了team storytelling的工作坊，三个人为一组，在一天的时间内在千禧公园内发掘新闻并做出展示成稿。 我们采访了一位希望通过行为艺术来唤起公众对收容所孩子关注的女士，并把它做成了一张新闻页。

晚上举行了整个JEA的开幕式，奥巴马总统的首席摄影师分享了他的新闻摄影经验。

整个会议/比赛的第二和第三天是各式各样的课程与分享，在同一个时段有多达二三十种课程可以选择。各类在传媒上非常著名的专家会分享从以下几个主题：

editing

design

entrepreneurship

leadership

news gathering

photojournalism

writing

news literacy

law and ethics

像我参加的分享中如 A designer’s guide to what works 2019, capturing Chicago history, the life as a food reporter 等等都让我收益颇丰。

除了各类课程以外，许多学校的新闻学院以及公司会举办展览及publication exchange，同学们可以去参加其中的活动及与他人畅谈。

此外，现场比赛的项目则需要现场写作、设计、或者拍摄视频。而我参加的线上提交作品的摄影类项目，则会在现场接受老师的点评。 我选择的是摄影类别中的photo story项目，最后获得了excellent的奖项。

NATURE OF THE CONTEST

You will submit THREE, FOUR OR FIVE of your photographs related to a common theme and should visually tell a story.

我选取了五张照片，这其中记录着我自己创建的环保社团草木千栖曾策划举办的公益活动：将入侵物种银合欢废物再利用制成树种名牌，绘画成湿地无痕小径。照片从家庭、孩子、老人、被清理的入侵植物和被再利用之后的树桩画的角度呈现了一个人与自然和谐共处的故事。

1

Invasive plant waste

At OCT wetland, bunch of invasive plant leucocephala （Lam.） de Wit are being cut down. The wetland park organized regular cleaning to prevent the unbalance and competition of resources by the invasive specie. A staff member of OCT wetland Xiaodi said, “There is such a huge amount of this invasive specie in our wetland, however, the waste is not addressed efficiently.”

2

Family drawing

A father and his son are drawing on a stump on the lawn in OCT wetland. This activity was organized by Nature+, a club that aimed at environmental protection, to creatively reuse the waste of leucocephala （Lam.） de Wit to make a zero-waste path. “This is an innovative way to teach children the ideology of ‘three R’ and I really appreciate this family time to create our own piece of art.” The father told the club members of Nature+.

3

Steps

A stump painted with frog’s paw almost blends in the surrounding plants and becomes part of the nature itself. Tourists could now see lots of steps with paintings in OCT wetland, which were made by the attendees to Nature+ ’s activity. “I am glad more people come to this fresh and green wetland in the fast-paced city. I do hope these zero-waste steps are not merely literal ‘steps’ under tourists’ footsteps, but they are steps and beginnings for a harmony between nature and people, and a care and attention from the public.” Said Xiangwei Meng, the manager of OCT wetland.

4

Donating wooden name cards

Two old people are donating wooden name cards to the wetland and taking photo with the manager of OCT wetland, Xiangwei Meng. This was another activity to deal with the invasive plant leucocephala （Lam.） de Wit designed by Nature+. They reused invasive plant’s waste to design name cards with scientific information of plants, and offered to have people’s name written on the name card in return for a 35 yuan donation to the wetland park. Yong yue, a 75 years old man in this photo, said, “I love trees, and I am happy I could contribute back to the nature by this connection of tree’s name and my name.”

5

Look up

A four-year old boy is excitedly looking up a name card hang on an unknown tree. More and more tourists could now learn more about the plants from the wooden name cards, connecting themselves to the environment. Chuhan Huang, a 17-year old girl and the founder of Nature+, wrote on the Wechat platform, “I hope I could help to preserve the curiosity and intimacy to the nature of this young generation, people like my age or younger than me. I remember Karle Jasper’s ideology‘a tree shaking a tree, a cloud to promote a cloud, a soul awaken another soul.’But my club actually used a tree to awake and influence more souls. ”

我很幸运，也很感激在如此繁忙的申请季学校和各位老师仍然支持和鼓励我去参加这样一个传媒类的竞赛及会议。人文情怀和新闻传播在当今社会是如此重要的一部分，它跟各个学科以及每个人的生活都息息相关。短短的四天里见识并学习到了各种新闻采集报道，摄影，排版，社会问题的知识，我很珍惜这美好而不可多得的经历：这正如开学典礼的主题“多元化发展”，它拓宽了我人生的边界，赋予了我一种新的可能性。

部分照片 / via Karen Cheng