Walker Grant students completed an innovative new digital citizenship curriculum in February. Led by teacher Natalie Hornung, the program awarded 3 Oculus Quest Virtual reality sets, headphones, more than 50 science experiments and t-shirts to the students who created a project illustrating the digital citizen concepts they learned.

“The excitement of the kids as they received the many generous gifts provided by SimVentions, Gemini 3 Group and Fredericksburg Parent and Family, was such a great way to head into Spring Break,” says Hornung.

The class covered media balance and well-being, privacy and security, digital footprint and identity, relationships and communication, cyberbullying, digital drama and hate speech, and news and media literacy. Sandy Gillenwater, Director of Community Outreach for City Schools, Mr. Caliri, from SimVentions, Mr. Blakemore from Gemini 3 Group and Mrs. Trask from Fredericksburg Parent and Family served as guest judges.

“I was so impressed by the content of the projects,” says Trask. “I learned some things I didn’t know and especially enjoyed the digital drama PowerPoint presentation and the newscast video project.”

1^st Place

• Grade 6, Annie Vasquez
• Grade 7, Melanie Johnson
• Grade 8, Mackenzie McAllister

2^nd place

• Grade 6, Isobel Hornung
• Grade 7, Mina Ebrahimi
• Grade 8, Kantida Tantayanurk

3^rd place

• Grade 6, Carmen Kuvinka
• Grade 7, Marissa George

Fredericksburg Parent was proud to support our middle school children as they navigate the digital world and learn how to find and use responsible news sources.