Ben Franklin scholars create podcast for WWNO Radio

Eight Ben Franklin junior and senior students have collaborated with students from Metairie Park Country Day School to create a radio podcast that will be aired on WWNO radio beginning on Thursday, December 15.

The Franklin students, members of the NOLA scholars program, have worked throughout the fall semester to create this radio microdocumentary.  The podcast will be aired as part of a series produced by WWNO radio, called TriPod: New Orleans at 300, developed to help celebrate the 300th anniversary of the founding of our city. The TriPod presentations move beyond the familiar New Orleans history to focus on forgotten, neglected, or forgotten pieces of the city’s past.

The podcast created by the students will focus on the historic St Augustine Catholic Church on Rampart St in the Treme.  In October, St Augustine Church, founded in 1841 as a place for free people of color and slaves, celebrated it’s 175th anniversary as a congregation.  Throughout history and to the present the congregation has been culturally diverse and committed to social justice and community service.

Students who attended the anniversary celebration at St Augustine have been assisted in the creative process by Laine Kaplan-Levenson, host and producer of TriPod 300. She’s met weekly with the NOLA Scholars to guide them in the techniques and process of creating a radio podcast, aided by historians and archivists at the Historic NO Collection. 

The student podcast will air on NPR’s Morning Edition at 8:30 am on Thursday, December 15 and will be repeated on air on Monday, December 19th at the same time.  TriPod 300 podcasts, including this one, will be available to listeners anytime after December 15 at WWNO.org website.


 
Benjamin Franklin High School, New Orleans’ most outstanding public charter school, has been preparing students for success through academic achievement since it was founded in 1957. Consistently ranked as a “top public high school in the nation” by U.S. News and World Report, Newsweek, and Business Week, Franklin has received the highest School Performance Score in Louisiana, making it the #1 public school in the state, year after year.  Franklin is repeatedly named a National Blue Ribbon School, producing Presidential and National Merit Scholars each year.  The exceptional students, faculty and staff of Benjamin Franklin High School are the best and the brightest of New Orleans.