Local students internationally recongized for their first-place winning video on ocean health
Local high school students have won first place in an international video contest. Compass Academy sophomores, Maya Peters-Greño and Maya Redden, received a $1,000 cash prize for their video on ocean health.
“Well, we were on the phone with one of the people from ‘World of 7 Billion,'” said Peters-Greño.
“And we thought it was just a normal interview because we got chosen as a finalist. And then they told us we won. And after we finished the interview and ran out the classroom and screamed,” added Redden.
“[We] screamed so loud,” Peters-Greño said.
These sophomores won first place in the World of 7 Billion video contest with their video about ocean health. The girls’ video was picked out of 3,000 videos from middle and high school students from 45 countries and 48 U.S. States. Their video, “Plastic Soup,” talks about how smaller plastics like microbeads pollute the ocean.
“We realized that microbeads were kind of an unsung topic. While plastics in the ocean is pretty well known, microbeads specifically aren’t as well known,” Redden said.
“They’re mostly found in toothpaste and face creams and face washes and sometimes makeup. All of them have it though, so it’s really easy to take out of your routine,” Peters-Greño said.
This all started in the girl’s AP Human Geography class. Their teacher assigned a task based on the contest guidelines.
“We made the videos based on the competition. And then it was encouraged that everyone submits them, but we were pretty proud of what we came up with, so I think that’s the main reason why we decided to submit it in the end,” Redden said.
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