Dartmouth High School media students recently won two awards from the state’s Department of Fire Services for its burn awareness video contest. 

Fire District 1 Chief Peter Andrade, Anthony Poente, firefighter and fire educator, and Alex Begallas, firefighter and assistant fire educator joined Robert Perrotti, the lead teacher for the Business, Innovation and Technology Department, at the high school Friday, June 7 to present the ‘Certificates of Creativity.”

Dartmouth submitted 11 of this year’s 69 entries, which came from 10 high schools across the state, according to Andrade.

Sierra Hart and Ella Moe received third place in the contest for their production, which focused on candle safety.

Moe said given the amount of work they put into the videos, they were happy to be recognized.

Hart agreed and said, “I definitely wasn’t expecting it, but I’m glad to see our hard work got acknowledged.”

She emphasized how proud she was of the video in its entirety, adding, “There’s a lot of good key elements in there.”

Moe and Hart highlighted how some of the fire safety discussed in the videos, they themselves had not learned in school. “It’s definitely a topic that should be discussed more,” Hart said.

Ava Nicholson and Isabella Cardoso won an honorable mention for their video, which overviewed a range of fire safety tips through the use of puppets.

Nicholson said, “It’s a good honor that we have won this out of so many entries and definitely something to be proud of for all of us.”

Cardoso said the two had fun working on the project, adding, “I feel like it came out pretty good.”

Nicholson and Cardoso highlighted how in editing, they faced a number of new challenges that allowed them to expand their knowledge in video production.

Perrotti said the fire safety videos are just one of many community outreach projects the media students have worked on this year. 

He said as the program continues to grow, so does their involvement with the community, such as the Fill a Bus Telethon.

In addition to these fire safety awards, Perrotti’s students also won three honorable mention awards in a New England video production contest.

For sports programming, Dartmouth received an honorable mention for its production of the school’s Sports Center Athletic Signing Day, which involved Ben Smith as talent and writer, Molly Bell as director and Percy Nadeau as camera.

For magazine programming, Dartmouth received an honorable mention for its Jan. 22 production of Dartmouth High News Now, which involved Tabitha Cabral-Elliott, Molly Cunningham and Noah Clark as talent; Mason Langlois as director; Lilly Sullivan, Ava Cabral and Kiah Roy as editors; Brayden Williams as camera; and Isabella Cardoso as narration.

The final honorable mention was for Editor Ava Cabral and her work on the Dec. 21 production of Dartmouth High School News Now.

Perrotti said, “There’s a lot of dedicated kids that makes it all that much more amazing for me as a teacher,” adding, “It’s a rewarding experience for the kids in more ways than one.”