Maria Blix

According to Maria Blix, the Grass Valley coordinator for Horizon Charter School and the instructor of the video production class, students spent more than 150 hours to finish the 30-minute documentary which they named "Gold, Greed & Glory: A History of Nevada County."
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The latter offered six eight-hour classes once a month, that Blix attended.There she learned the video production software and taught the same to her students.

"It was learning about uploading the film from the camera into the computer, importing pictures, doing sound-overlays ... of course the kids did it all and I watched," Blix said.

The main purpose of the project was to incorporate technology into the classroom and help the students learn about the three cultures - Cornish miners, Maidu Indians, and the Chinese workers - that were a part of the history of Nevada County, Blix said.
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"This was above and beyond the regular school work," Blix said.
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"We are going to apply for a school grant through the History Channel because video production is an expensive class," Blix said."Placer County Office of Education gave us the camera to use.My school was supposed to come up with the laptops for the kids to use.So my goal is to apply for this $10,000 grant to get five laptops, five cameras, and have all the equipment we need, instead of one camera and one laptop which made it very difficult at times."

Parents as well as Blix paid, at times, for the miscellaneous costs not covered by the school.But for Blix and the eight children involved the hard work has paid off.

"They are going to remember this for the rest of their lives," Blix said.