Editor’s note: A group of students at UNC-Chapel Hill could be in the process of changing how media operate in the future. ExitEvent Editor Laura Baverman focuses in on the Reese News Lab. This post is the latest in a news partnership between ExitEvent and WRALTechWire.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - If you’ve ever wanted to bet on the weather, you just might get a chance.

Tomorrow, a team of four University of North Carolina students will stand before a room of meteorologists and news crews to share their idea for Weather Wager. Best compared to the sports betting site CentSports, says sophomore Matt Plaus, the app lets you bet on the weather for free, but earn money from successful bets over time.

Weather Wager is one of six ideas born out of a trio of semester-long challenges posed by John Clark and his team at the Reese News Lab. Funded with a large donation and tucked in the basement of the journalism school at Carroll Hall, the lab opened three years ago to innovate in media.

But a year ago, Clark, formerly general manager at WRAL.com, repositioned the lab to teach students to think like entrepreneurs. He believes that students can play a role in evolving the quickly changing news business into the future. The lab is open to any student in any college on campus.

His students have already come up with one viable product. Beginning with the North Carolina General Assembly’s May legislative session, an audio transcription subscription service called Capitol Hound will be available for $500 to lawyers, lobbyists and journalists who want to listen to and track the discussions on the House and Senate floor. The Lab has applied for a grant from Knight Foundation’s Prototype Fund to grow the business beyond North Carolina in coming months.

They’ll also partner up with students from across the nation at UNC’s first Journalism School Hackathon, sponsored by PBS Mediashift and planned for May 31 and June 1st. (They’re looking for local entrepreneur mentors too.)

The full story can be read online at ExitEvent.