Elmwood Students Appear on WGN-TV as They Begin to Learn About Journalism
Some Elmwood Park parents recently got the thrill of watching their students on live TV. Elmwood Elementary 2nd grade teacher Roberta Predovich is always looking for opportunities for her students to connect with their communities outside the classroom, and on January 17th, she organized for her class to visit Mike D’Angelo, father of Henry D’Angelo, at WGN-TV! D’Angelo is a photojournalist & producer for WGN-TV, and has won 33 Chicago/Midwest Emmy® Awards for his work with WGN-TV.
The field trip to WGN-TV consisted of a tour of the studio, exploring the field truck, speaking with the anchormen, watching a live production, and the whole class even appearing on TV.
Elmwood is the first school WGN-TV has ever hosted. Predovich sees it as an opportunity to expose the kids to journalism, a career path they otherwise might not learn about for a while. She appreciated how the team took time to answer every question the kids could think of, and were very welcoming to the big group in such a small studio.
Going forward, 2nd grade will partner with the Elmwood Park High School journalism students throughout the spring to learn about different mediums in journalism, and ultimately create their own news pieces. EPHS students will spend time in the 2nd grade classroom, and an upcoming field trip for the 2nd grade will include getting to see EPHS’s broadcast studio, which was recently developed in part through grant funding from the Illinois Art Council.
“The high schoolers can be great mentors to the 2nd grade students,” Predovich said. “I’m very excited to see what the final product will be, because as long as we keep giving them opportunities, the second graders will rise to it.”
Throughout the last few years, Predovich has worked on partnering more with families to get students involved in the Elmwood Park community. In the last two years, they have worked with the city staff to pick up garbage around local parks, and, in the 2023-2024 year, they extended the volunteer opportunity to parents as well.
“It was such a hit,” she said. “It made a big difference in the kids”
Predovich is planning on surveying parents at the beginning of next school year to see what new opportunities there might be to continue to increase parent involvement and create more chances to learn about different careers.
Stay tuned for more updates on the 2nd Grade/EPHS partnership!