STUDENTS WIN NATIONAL COMPETITION SHERMAN OAKS STUDENTS PLACE THIRD IN DOCUMENTARY CONTEST.

Byline: JOHAN MENGESHA Valley News Writer

Danny Rodriguez wanted to learn why he and his 40 classmates were crammed in a small trailer at the back of his school in a math class with few resources, so he made an award-winning documentary about it.

Three out of five documentary films submitted by students from Millikan Middle School in Sherman Oaks won awards in a national competition in which middle and high school students produced their own films on a current political topic of their choosing.

The winners were announced on March 31 and among them were Millikan students Rodriguez, a seventh-grader, and eighth-graders Stephanie Sandoval, Mandy Cota, Kellie Kuehn and Michael Alvarez. They were part of 14 third-prize winners around the country who each received a $500 cash award.

The StudentCam competition was sponsored by C-Span Classroom, a free membership service that aims to assist educators' use of C-Span programming in their classes or for research.

Students had the option to work in groups of up to three people or by themselves.

Sandoval, a young girl who aspires to become a judge someday, produced her own film titled ``The Juvenile Justice System.''

Sandoval said she chose her topic because she has friends who are going through the juvenile justice system now and she had an experience with her brother going through it a few years back. Her brother is serving a life sentence for murder.

``It was tough going to the juvenile detention center be- cause it brought back memories of my brother,'' Sandoval said.

Rodriguez got his idea from his math teacher, Bob Gilliam, a big C-Span fan who introduced the competition to his students. Rodriguez said his documentary was about the state's budget cuts on the educational system and how it has affected him and his classmates.

``A lot of the times we don't have pencils in class,'' Rodriguez said.

One of the major difficulties of producing the documentary was the lack of resources available to the students. Many students had to use their own video cameras to finish their projects.

Cota, Kuehn and Alvarez worked together on their documentary ``Who is Listening: Wiretapping.''

Cota said her group chose their topic from looking at current events online that they thought were interesting. Wiretapping was not something they knew much about before, so a lot of research had to be done, she said.

The biggest adversity all the students faced was the short period of time they had to complete it, Cota said.

When the students at Millikan started their documentaries, there was only three weeks left until the entry deadline. Gilliam had originally thought the civics or video production teachers would want to use the competition as projects in their classes. But they did not, so Gilliam decided to let his students do it for extra credit in his math class.

The films had to include clips of C-Span programming and both sides of the topic had to be fairly balanced throughout the documentary, which could be up to 10 minutes in length.

``The main purpose of the competition was to hear from young people and what they are thinking about,'' said Joanne Wheeler, vice president of education relations at C-Span.

She said by doing a lot of research on their topics, the students would hopefully learn more and start developing their own opinions instead of those of friends or family members.

This was the second year of the annual StudentCam competition and Wheeler said that even though C-Span officials were very impressed by all submissions, they hope for a bigger and better competition next year.