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Northeast Range students were shocked in a recent trip to St. Paul.
In a really good way. The Northeast Range Film and Television Class took home first place at the 2024 annual “Minnesota Manufactured Statewide Tour Banquet,” manufacturing video competition. “ At first, I was not expecting us to get first place,” Chesley Nelmark, a Northeast Range junior said. “But I was pleasantly surprised when they announced our name because we were up against two bigger schools, so I was shocked.”
Perhaps even more shocking is that the Northeast Range Film and Television Class is in its first year.
“We have a journalism class that I’ve been teaching for about ten years,” Jennifer Kaufenberg, Northeast Range English and Communications instructor said. “But there was a big interest in film and television, so we decided to try this class.”
The class scored big in the competition, taking home the winners’ trophy and a $750 cash first prize.
Students in the class donated $150 of the prize back to the Film and Television Class and split the remainder of the winnings among themselves, Kaufenberg said.
Students in the class began their learning this school year by filming videos around the school campus, Kaufenberg said.
But they wanted to learn about real-life manufacturing jobs in the state and how to apply it to the workforce, Kaufenberg said.
To make the video, the class toured, filmed and produced a two-minute video about Lamppa Manufacturing in Tower and Razor Edge Systems in Ely.
“We do not have any big manufacturing companies here,” Kaufenberg said “So we contacted Lamppa Manufacturing and Razor Edge where we have alumni at both places. Before the tours, we learned about manufacturing jobs in Minnesota and then did tours at Lamppa Manufacturing and Razor Edge.”
Students learned about welding at Lamppa Manufacturing, robotics at Razor Edge and interviewed employees at each business for the video, Kaufenberg said.
“It was definitely a learning experience, because you don’t get to really get do big projects like this, like going on field trips like this and working with your whole class, so it was a cool experience,” Avery Buschman, a Northeast Range sophomore said. After submitting the video to the competition, the class was invited to the banquet at St. Paul College.
A grant from True North Stars Perkins Consortium provided financial support for the students to make the manufacturing field trip tours and for transportation costs to St. Paul.
However, the class headed to St. Paul not knowing what it may have won, Kaufenberg said.
In winning first place, students say the class, grant support, and the manufacturing tours were invaluable in making the video.
“Teamwork for sure,” Buschman said of how the class worked together on the video. “I just think it was a great opportunity given to us, otherwise I don’t know where we’d be right now and present it the way we did.”
Plans are to grow the class into a career and technical education class where students will explore different careers and fields and use their film and TV skills to produce films about those careers, Kaufenberg said.
“We’ll invest a lot of time in learning about different careers that the students can study,” Kaufenberg said. “Let’s say we want to look at a different career field, say journalism, then we’ll look at doing a film about that. If there are students who are interested in nursing, we’ll look at the medical field of careers and put the skills we’re learning in the film and TV class to do a video.”
For Nelmark, the class may be helping her think about a career.
“My favorite part of this film class has been learning how to film the different angles,” Nelmark said. “I think probably some journalism like maybe writing for the news stations or being a newscaster would be a super fun career. As for what I’m going for, I’m not sure yet. I’d like to work in public relations.”
Northeast Range is a St. Louis County Schools campus located in Babbitt.
