Season 1, Episode 4:
In this episode, Segerstrom News Today covers three stories:
- E-Sports Tournament Brings Jags Together
- Car Ownership Drives Our Jags
- Checking Off Senior Bucket Lists
Production Team:
Producer: Alondra Cifuentes
Host: Emily Gonzales
Camera Engineer: Joshua Vu
Audio Engineer: Alondra Cifuentes
Scriptwriter: Joshua Vu
Soundtrack Music by: https://www.bensound.com License code: CUF4XNIU2YLSI0UU
SAUSD Non-Discrimination Statement https://www.sausd.us/Page/36488
Hello, welcome to the third episode of Segerstrom News Today I’m your host Emily Gonzales. We have three quality stories that cover several interesting topics. We hope you enjoy this production for students by students. This episode has three informational stories that focus on engineering, economics, and higher education. Our first story features the Segerstrom Femineers. The Femineer Club empowers women by introducing them to the wonderful world of STEM. Throughout March, the Femineeers hosted a power tools workshop that was open to all students. Our Melanie Vargas has that story.
Throughout the month of March, the Femineers Club held a workshop introducing a range of power tools to Segerstrom students. The hands-on experience taught the importance of safety and skillful techniques. Each week the workshop would focus on a different power tool. These workshops were passionately facilitated by Engineering Teacher, Adam Woods.
Mr. Woods Interview “My hope Is that they could walk away with some early exposure to that, that they could then take with them anywhere maybe they’re using it in their personal life at home with some basic tools, but maybe in a more advanced settings like in an engineering lab of some kind.”
After a detailed lesson regarding workshop safety, Mr. Woods began by teaching students how to use a Bandsaw. This powerful tool is known for woodcarving, metalworking, and lumbering.
“And then I will guide them with it. Once they see it in action, they see they can be used very safely, and they see how effective it is, then I think that that fear kind of switches over to a little bit more confidence and also a sense of hey this is a tool that’s super useful and can get things done very quickly.”
At the next workshop, Mr. Woods provided the students a lesson on power drills. Although most know the basics, Mr. Woods went in depth on proper drilling techniques.
“ For me, the workshop was really fun. I got to have hands-on experience on different power tools that I can use in the future. It was kind of scary at first, like the bandsaw and like the power drill, but Mr. Woods was really helpful in showing us how to use them.”
The workshop ended with students using a drill press. Mr. Woods was able to guide the students to operate the drill press seamlessly. These stationary drills are more complex and precise than most power tools.
“For me, it was something new, but just seeing it and like not knowing first it felt a little scary, but when doing it, it was like, it was kind of like cool, yeah. I learned about the safety precautions and I learned how to use the machines which I will be using hopefully in the future.”
With Mr. Woods’s passionate lessons and the Femineer’s positive spirits, this was an unforgettable experience for those attending. In addition to teaching the basics of power tools, several students were empowered and invigorated with such a wonderful experience.
Wow, how amazing we’re teaching these young women to learn useful skills. The next story highlights students’ opinions about the need for more finance classes. Even though Segerstrom students take economics their senior year, Segerstrom News wanted to find out if students want more to prepare them for the future. Our Mayah Reyes reports.
All Segerstrom students take one semester of economics their senior year where they learn the basics about how the economy works. Though this class is designed to help seniors be ready for the real world, 9th, 10th, and 11th-grade students have also shown an interest in what this class has to offer. Allynah Sotomil, a junior, shares her perspective on taking the class next year.
“I’m really excited to take econ next year because I want to learn more about money and possibly how the stock market works and maybe invest in that.
This kind of interest in a class reveals so much about what students want from school. Recently, on a Writing Across the Curriculum prompt, students were asked to write an essay about what class they would like to have added to our courses. Overwhelmingly, students wrote essays on having more finance classes. The senior economics class covers topics such as supply and demand, finance, and markets. Mr. Decker, an Economics teacher, discusses the class and explains the concept behind the stock market.
“The stock market is, obviously, a market, and so everyone hopefully knows what a market is. A market is where buyers and sellers go to have transactions. The buyers have something they need or want. And the sellers have something they want to sell to make a profit from. So a stock market is a place where buyers and sellers meet to buy and sell stocks which are part ownership of a company.”
Students learn this type of essential information in Economics class. The only problem is that this course is only offered to seniors. For students thinking about going into business or hoping to create financial stability in the future, having classes that teach how to manage money would give them a head start. Sebastian Orozco, a senior, knows the value of understanding your finances.
“I think if we had our classes earlier so I would have benefitted a lot more than having them right now, how we are doing in AVID class, because as it is our Senior year, I feel like people do tend to get more slack off on their work, you know, and not pay attention as much, so I believe having your classes earlierin high schoolwould keep us more informed better than having them later in your four years of high school.
The economy is a part of our day-to-day lives. It influences and impacts us in many different ways. And without knowing the basics of economics, planning for the future becomes difficult. As an adult looking back, Gabriela Pedraza, Segerstrom parent of freshman Melanie Piedra, reflects on how learning about finance early, can help teens later.
“I personally wish that someone would have helped me how to invest my money at a younger age, when I was a teenager. I think when you teach the kids to invest and to be able to manage their money, they will have the ability to be able to build up their financial, in a different way. When they are older, in their adulthood, they can be able to provide more for themselves. And then they can start building up their credit.”
It seems that from students to parents to teachers, there is a growing demand to bring in more financial education classes to Segerstrom students. Mr. Decker knows that understanding economics will help students in their future successes. He shares why students need a better understanding of economics.
“I completely believe that students need to be more invested in learning economics. Basically, economics affects everything everyone does every single day of their lives. The reality is most people don’t realize that what they’re doing is economic thinking, but every choice we make, every decision we settle on, has economics at its heart.”
It’s nice to know that Segerstrom students recognize the importance of learning about finance. The final story focuses on Segerstrom’s best and brightest students. Several exceptional Seniors have been accepted to Ivy League colleges. Segerstrom News wanted to highlight their amazing accomplishments. Celeste Carmona reports.
As the school year comes to an end, all of the seniors are making their final decisions on where they are attending college. The city of Santa Ana has always been known for its bad reputation, but what people don’t know is the hard work that is put in by the SAUSD students
“Something I noticed from other admitted students, like in colleges in general, is that they have a lot more opportunities and they come from more well-to-do backgrounds, right? But, just because they might not have the same opportunities, doesn’t mean that our city doesn’t offer us opportunities at all. We still have a lot at our disposal and colleges do take into account that that we made the most of what we do have and they look at that when they are considering an application.”
As seniors in the Santa Ana district, they have many opportunities to make better applications. Even if that means adding the finishing touches or applying to new scholarships late at night.
“The Higher Ed Center was a really great help with Ms. Huezo. She really helped me. She was on the documents at 10:00 p.m., and it was really helpful. I feel like all the teachers also helped.”
These opportunities have helped these seniors to become very competitive for these top colleges and have something to make the whole community proud of where they come from.
“Because a big part of my application, who I am as person, is that I want to give back to my community, and I really learned to love it so much because of the culture, ethnicities that are in it because it is predominantly Hispanic, and I am also Hispanic, so I really felt that there’s something to, it was something worth fighting for.”
Santa Ana has been stereotyped as a bad city with a lot of criminal activity, but it’s actually a wholesome and inclusive community.
It’s truly great that these very young students strive for success and get accepted into these wonderful schools. That is all the time we have for today. We thank you for your time and hope you have enjoyed this episode of Segerstrom News Today. If you’re interested in more stories like this, visit our website segerstromnews.com. Thank you for your time, and we hope you have a great rest of your day.
