Pottsville, Arkansas video

Have you ever been in a situation where you were just trying to find what is for lunch tomorrow from the school website, but you find yourself stumbling upon the Pottsville, Ark., website? Many people find themselves coming across a school website that sounds familiar, but looks very different from the one they were looking for.

Ms. Amy Whorton, the sociology teacher at Pottsville High School in Arkansas contacted the social studies teachers here. The plan was for students in both schools to learn more about each other’s school environment through videos.

“I am very excited to be exchanging our video about Pottsville, Arkansas, with students from Pottsville, Pennsylvania.  Google sometimes directs our people to your school and we get phone calls in our office intended for your school, so we have always been curious about the other Pottsville. I am so glad that Ms. Delenick agreed to exchange videos. Maybe after viewing the movies, we could do a Google hangout to have an opportunity to ask questions,” Ms. Whorton said.

Mrs. Pamela Delenick asked her first period American History 3 class to participate in the video exchange. The class received a video from Arkansas first.

“It was entertaining and showed us quite a different atmosphere from ours. They are nicknamed the Apaches and are in the middle of what was known as Indian Territory,” Mrs. Delenick said. “Their activities and culture are quite different from ours. They had students working at jobs like tending to cattle and rodeos.”

Their school is very rural and in a farm area. The students there have no dress code like PASD has.

“My favorite part of the project was taking the video and talking about our cafeteria. Their video showed their school very well; it showed all of their teams and it was interesting to see a school with the same name as us, but so different,” junior Blake Miller said.

Mrs. Delenick split her students into small groups and assigned each a different task. It took two weeks for the groups to complete their end of the projects. Students used their iPads for interviews, data and school scenes. Iconic spots in the school were filmed, from the school auditorium to Martz Hall.

“I filmed the courtyard, football stadium and band hallway. I also filmed the auditorium and talked about pep rallies. I wanted Pottsville, Ark., to see how proud we are of our art and music programs and how much school spirit we have,” junior Ariana Ansel said.

Emails are still being exchanged between Arkansas and Pennsylvania. Mrs. Delenick’s project is in the final stages of being made. The video will be sent back to Arkansas as soon as it is finished.

“It’s cool to see what their school was like. [The school] is very active in sports. The school is surrounded by farmland and they own many farm animals,” junior Alex Cavaluchi said.