The folks at PBS NewsHour Extra announce the launch of their Student Reporting Labs website

www.studentreportinglabs.com. With a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the NewsHour has trained student journalists in Texas, Louisiana, Utah, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and DC. Thus far, 230 students have produced 15 news reports that looked at important national issues (climate change, immigration, the economy and the Supreme Court) from local, youth-oriented perspectives. The site includes a news literacy/digital media curriculum and a “cloud reporting” collaborative space for students to work with local station mentors and each other. In the coming months, the Student Reporting Labs project hopes to secure additional funding to add more than 17 local PBS stations and schools who want to start their own Labs.

The new reporting labs website was recently featured as the “site of the week” by eSchool News. In addition to providing a place for students to feature their work and collaborate with one another on video production, the site offers a full student reporting curriculum for teachers written by the Media Education Lab at Temple University and the NewsHour Extra team.

“The Student Reporting Labs are a natural extension of the NewsHour’s commitment to education, quality journalism, and the transformation of public media,” says Leah Clapman, managing editor for education at the PBS NewsHour. “Each student who participates in the Lab gains information and media skills, news savvy, and curiosity about national and community issues. They experience the power of getting and telling a story to an authentic audience.”

This video from NewsHour Correspondents Jim Lehrer, Hari Sreenivasan, Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff shows that the project is core to the NewsHour's mission of education and concern for the future of quality journalism.