Signature Series

STUDENTS TACKLE CRITICAL TOPICS:

2025-2026

  • Title
    Project Description
  • Artists who draw people together
    Find an artist in your community who uses their work to connect people.
  • The real impact of artificial intelligence
    Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have been happening rapidly in recent years. AI platforms can now perform tasks, have realistic conversations, assist with writing and research, and make creative pursuits like art and music-making easier.
  • Living through a natural disaster
    This assignment is for young people living through a natural disaster who have the desire and ability to tell a story about the event and its aftermath. Safety is paramount, so do not put yourself in harm’s way, however if you have a smartphone or another camera/device to record what’s happening around you, Student Reporting Labs wants to hear your story.
  • Teen caregivers: when young people take on big responsibilities
    Many teens provide the important, and often unpaid work, of caregiving to others– including their parents, older family members and younger siblings. Their extra responsibilities often impact their lives significantly– with research showing young caregivers spend less time on school, work, and leisure activities, compared to their peers.

2024-2025

  • Title
    Project Description
  • On Our Minds: Season 5
    On Our Minds Season 5 is an 8-episode podcast season exploring the theme “who inspires you?” Episodes feature student journalists from across the country in conversation with individuals they look up to — in their local communities and the larger national conversation, like authors Viet Nguyen, Bryan Stevenson, Nic Stone, and Dr. Joy Harden Bradford.
  • Exploring immigrant experiences
    What does it mean to fit in and feel American? If you or your parents were born in another country, how do you stay connected to more than one culture?
  • Climate change in my community
    Students explore local stories about climate change and the environment.
  • Elections 2024: Young leaders
    Student journalists tell stories about young people participating in the 2024 elections.
  • America’s hidden histories
    The story of America is always evolving. How we talk about the country’s past plays a big role in shaping its present and future. Student journalists have a unique opportunity to uncover and share stories of American history that are often overlooked in traditional narratives.

2023-2024

2022-2023

  • Title
    Project Description
  • Food & Identity
    How does what you eat shape who you are? What kinds of dishes do you enjoy with your family and friends? How do these foods and recipes tell a story about you, your family, your culture, and your community?
  • On Our Minds Season 3
    On Our Minds is an Edward R. Murrow award-winning, student-led and student-produced podcast about the biggest mental health challenges young people face. In each episode, two teen reporters guide you through stories by high schoolers from PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs about the teenage experience that connects, educates and inspires listeners of all ages.
  • Student Journalism Challenge with XQ
    How is school preparing you for your future? What’s working? What could be done differently? How is education adapting to our changing world? What do you want from your education that doesn’t currently exist? Hear from winners and honorable mentions of the Student Journalism Challenge.
  • U.S. Midterms & Democracy
    Student reporters cover the 2022 midterm elections

2021-2022

  • Title
    Project Description
  • What they didn’t teach me in school
    This school year, there’s a national conversation going on about how things like history, current events and specific books should — and shouldn’t —be taught in schools. But we know that young people are looking to sources outside of school — online and otherwise — to learn about the world, too.
  • TikTok’s “Devious Licks”
    A viral TikTok trend (known as the "devious lick” challenge) has swept schools across the country. What kind of TikTok-inspired acts have happened at your school and how is it affecting students and staff?
  • Returning to School
    After a year of online learning, millions of students are heading back to school in person amid surges of the Delta variant.
  • On Our Minds: Season 2
    SRL is producing the second season of our podcast "On Our Minds" about teen mental health! For this special reporting project, SRL has two opportunities: 1. apply to be a student host and/or 2. pitch and produce an audio story.
  • Education’s Big Debates
    SRL is producing a digital special premiering on NewsHour’s platforms and distributed through PBS Plus examining how today’s biggest civic debates are impacting education. For this advanced storytelling assignment, SRL needs your help to produce video news stories or explainers for our education special.
  • 9/11 – 20 Years Later
    Current high school students were born years after the September 11 attacks, but are surrounded by people with vivid memories of the events, either from the news or in-person on that day. How are students today learning about the attacks and the world events that resulted?
  • Pop Culture That Made Me Feel Seen
    SRL wants you to share a time when you “felt seen” by something in pop culture or in the media (a movie, book, TV show, song, podcast, comic book, etc.)

2020-2021

  • Title
    Project Description
  • On Our Minds: Mental health podcast
    Students learn how to make their own podcast episode, resulting in an audio story about a young person and their experience with mental health.
  • Justice For All
    Students explore justice in their own community, and use solutions journalism to produce a story about how people are working to create “justice for all.”
  • Education During a Pandemic
    Students explore ways the pandemic has changed education by producing a 2-5 minute news story with interviews, b-roll, and/or voiceover narration.
  • Our #Election2020
    Student journalists will find out how young people feel about our democracy: its fairness, its faults, and how they’d like to see it operate if they were in charge.
  • Moving Forward – How are young people challenging racism?
    Students capture teen voices on race and injustice in the U.S. and will film and interview students from their school and community to find out how young people are challenging racism and creating change.
  • Voices from Isolation
    SRL reports on the effects of COVID-19 on their communities

2019-2020

2018-2019

  • Title
    Project Description
  • STEM & Health
    Youth journalists in STEM Student Reporting Labs explore how citizen scientists are advancing knowledge while Health SRLs investigate where students turn in a mental health crisis and show how peer to peer counseling programs build healthier school communities.
  • Art in Real Life
    How are Americans experiencing art across the country? Find out in SRL’s latest series, Art in Real Life #artIRL.
  • Opportunity in America
    For our series, "Opportunity in America," teen journalists produced stories that explore dreams, expectations and the barriers teenagers must overcome to achieve their goals.
  • Turning Out: The Youth Vote
    Teen reporters from the PBS NewsHour Student Reporting Labs across the country captured how teens feel about voting and the upcoming midterm elections.

2017-2018

  • Title
    Project Description
  • Health Innovators
    Youth journalists investigate how health care innovators across the country are shaping our future and redefining what it means to be “healthy.”
  • Engineering Our World
    Youth journalists explore how engineering is reshaping our lives.
  • Power in Numbers
    Youth social movements across America
  • Misinformation Overload
    Teens reveal impact and perceptions of misinformation
  • Making It Work
    Today’s Youth, Tomorrow’s Jobs

2016-2017

2015-2016

2014-2015

2013

  • Title
    Project Description
  • Tough Calls
    Concussion awareness in youth sports programs