Don’t bother looking around the Independence High School campus on Thursday or Friday for students Tim Inniss, Wade Badoni or Mary Peifer.

They’ll be in downtown Albuquerque, hanging out at the Hyatt Regency Hotel, checking out some of what’ll be going on at the 31st annual Southwest/Texas Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association meeting.

On Saturday morning, usually a sleep-in time for teenagers, the IHS students will be making video presentations of their own creation.

rio rancho observer '€” gary herron photo From left, IHS students Tim Inniss, Wade Badoni and Mary Peifer chat about their videos.

“That was easy,” teacher Michelle Jewett said. “They were excited. It’s really a cool opportunity.”

The theme of this year’s meeting is “Alien to You? Not to Me. Science Fiction and Fantasy: Films, TV and Literature as Popular Culture.”

Yes, that’s a mouthful.

Badoni’s video deals with the Navajo people’s “Long Walk” from their native land in northeaster Arizona and western New Mexico to Bosque Redondo in 1864; it’s part of his New Mexico History class project. He interviewed two of his grandparents in Red Mesa, Utah, who responded to his questions in Navajo; their remarks are translated and captioned on screen. Badoni interviewed his grandfather, a medicine man, seated in his home; his grandmother, wearing traditional Navajo clothing, was interviewed outside the family hogan (traditional Navajo home), with her grandson using a flickering, black-and-white technique to give it an older feel.

Inniss’s Government and Economics video deals with instantaneous news gathering and the proliferation of cell phones and iPods and the like; how much of it is worthwhile?

“I wanted to make them aware of what they can do with technology other than checking scores on ESPN or watching TV,” he said.

Peifer, expecting to complete her video later this week while her classmates make their final edits, said hers deals with chemistry and global warming.

IHS teachers Jewett and Marla Peters said they were proud of what their students have been doing with their videos, helped along in part by the donation of two high-tech wireless microphones and a boom pole from Karl Winkler of nearby Lectrosonics. Peters said IHS students prepared a promotional video for the Rio Rancho electronics firm that will soon appear on YouTube.

“I hope this is the start of something,” Jewett, who will make a presentation of her own this week, said. “We teach the same way we’ve taught for 50 years. (Some) students find it irrelevant.”

Jewett’s topic is “High School Filmmakers: Presenting Alternatives to the Core Curriculum.” According to her abstract, Jewett explained that “in an effort to provide a more meaningful alternative, students, colleagues and I created independent study filmmaking courses in Chemistry and Economics & Government.”

Peters said she had been learning more from the work her students have turned out in the New Mexico History and American History classes.

Jewett said students’ video skills have to be used in conjunction with research on their topics, plus have a human element — often interviews with fellow students or grandparents, as in Badoni’s case.

“I wouldn’t say every teacher should do it this way,” Jewett, working on her doctorate and a teaching veteran of 12 years, said. Making videos to help in the learning process won’t work for every subject, obviously. “(But) this approach could reach a lot more students.”

But Jewett and Peters like the results they’ve seen at IHS.

Founded by Dr. Peter C. Rollins in the 1970s, the Southwest/Texas PCA/ACA has sought to foster the interdisciplinary study of our region through its fascinating legacy of literary, historical, visual, and media images.

Since then the organization, affiliated with the National Popular and American Culture Associations founded by Ray B. Browne, has grown to include a wide range of offerings bringing participants together from across the nation and internationally.

Jewett said each student’s registration fee of $150 was paid for by an anonymous donor.