The World of 7 Billion student video contest encourages students to think critically about the challenges facing the planet today and to take that understanding to the next level through problem solving. One component of the video is to offer a sustainable solution to their chosen global challenge. Students take their newfound knowledge and apply STEM principles to design a sustainable solution to the global challenge and in doing so, begin to think like engineers, scientists, and future policy-makers.
Below are a few examples of real-world solutions to this year’s contest challenges you can share with your students:
Climate Change
The Food Recovery Network – is a food collection program with over 190 chapters in 44 US states. The Network collects food that would otherwise be wasted and redistributes it to area partners. Food production is a greenhouse gas intensive process and about 40% of food produced in the US is thrown out each year.
Ocean Health
Adidas-Parley – the notorious shoe company has teamed up with Parley, an organization working on ocean pollution issues, to produce shoes made from marine plastics. By up-cycling ocean plastics, Adidas is helping rid the ocean of harmful pollution that pose a threat to marine and human health.
Rapid Urbanization
MillionTreesNYC – is a citywide initiative whose goal is to plant and care for one million new trees across New York City’s five boroughs over the next decade. Trees offer a variety of environmental, economic and social benefits such as, improved air quality, increase in property values, and improved health.
Sustainable Solutions
Developing a sustainable solution can be the most challenging part of participating in the contest. With this in mind we have developed a Sustainable Solution Organizer which focuses exclusively on the solution portion of the video and is meant to provide students guidance when organizing their thoughts. Using this organizer, your students will have the chance to cover each of the steps demanded of a sustainable solution and end up with a video that could change the world.
We can’t wait to see what your students come up with! For complete contest details please visit www.worldof7billion.org/student-video-contest/.
