Evan Gillespie and Ayden Lamb, members of Sampson Middle Fellowship of Christian Students and MathCounts, work on their school project.
                                 Brendaly Vega Davis|Sampson Independent

Evan Gillespie and Ayden Lamb, members of Sampson Middle Fellowship of Christian Students and MathCounts, work on their school project.

Brendaly Vega Davis|Sampson Independent

<p>Graham Dirks, Mirabella Edwards, Paulina Adasiak and Rivor Bass record their MathCounts project.</p>
                                 <p>Courtesy photo</p>

Graham Dirks, Mirabella Edwards, Paulina Adasiak and Rivor Bass record their MathCounts project.

Courtesy photo

Sampson Middle School has a new green screen studio.

It was acquired through the Love of Learning Grant written for the school by 2020 Beginning Teacher of the Year, Sequita White.

“Originally I wrote it for my MathCounts and Fellowship Of Christian Students,” White explained. “MathCounts is a national competition and a video game challenge. It’s allowing them to do more group and hands-on activities that helps them teach other kids about math. It’s a creative way for our students to compete on national levels through math competitions. But at the same time, it encourages their peers to gain interest in math as well as technology.”

Fellowship Of Christian Students will use the studio to help correlate the Jesse Lewis Choose Love Curriculum to help increase students motivation as well as provide that extra emotional and spiritual support that many students need, according to White.

“FCS’s mission is to help motivate their peers to do not only their school work but to also use positive affirmation daily with our Jesse Lewis Choose Love Curriculum,” White explained.

MathCounts Video Challengers is a national math program that allows students to compete on a national level. This program requires students to use collaboration, creativity, and their math content knowledge to create a video explaining a math problem from the assigned playbook.

White was awarded a Love of Learning Grant to help provide a holistic teaching to Sampson Middle students.

“My goal is to address students emotional, social, spiritual, and physical needs to provide a more meaningful teaching,” White stated. “This green screen studio provides a space for students to be creative while they learn. It’s also a way to help increase students motivation during these trying and unpredictable times.”

Allison Ray, Media Center coordinator, has a newscast group that will provide Sampson Middle with weekly national and local news. Her newscast group will inform students of current political issues, weather updates and popular media trends.

“My kids were hoping to get some type of news program up for Sampson Middle School,” Ray noted. “Right now we’re just learning.”

“We have wild aspirations for it in the future although we are at the beginning for this,” SMS Principal Robert Turlington noted of the green screen studio. “We want to be able to use it for news broadcasts, teacher presentations, Social Studies and so on.”

Brendaly Vega Davis can be reached at 910-592-8137 ext. 2588.