Videos are a powerful tool and one that young people are using more and more to make their voices heard. Recently, youths across the world used film to grapple with some tough questions: Does population growth matter? Should we care that over 7 billion people share the Earth and its resources?
The following videos have managed to tackle not only the complex topic of population growth, but have linked it to some of today’s most pressing global challenges – deforestation, public health, and water scarcity. Created by middle and high schools students and all under one-minute in length, the films are an extraordinary example of today’s youth taking on issues that will be important throughout their entire lives and offering their own unique ideas for solutions.
Deforestation and Population
1. One Stump at a Time – This cleverly animated film provides easy-to-digest statistics about deforestation and plausible solutions to what can seem like an overwhelming challenge – global deforestation.
2. Deforestation and Population Growth: a Visual Essay – A montage of clips and moving music, this video implores us to eat less meat because so many forests are cut to make room for cattle ranching.
3. Our Job – Swapping between clips of beautiful rainforests and multilane highways, this video focuses on the opportunity cost of cutting down trees – the oxygen they would produce if left to grow.
4. Deforestation – A Problem For All – From palm oil production to the emission of greenhouse gases, colorful drawings and a friendly voiceover offer digestible statistics around deforestation and the role population growth plays in the problem.
5. Why Take It All Away? – Simply animated images help convey the video’s message connecting deforestation and global warming, in a clear and succinct way.
6. Habitat Loss in the Rainforest – This charming stop-motion film depicting biodiversity loss due to chopping down rainforests is a great example of student creativity and hard work.
Public Health and Population
7. Loving Her – Viewed through the lens of a young woman’s journal, the video explores issues of global maternal health and importance of healthy families.
8. Global Maternal Health – Perhaps the strongest message showing the cycle of a public health issue and population growth, this video recognizes that most maternal deaths happen in the least developed places and often because of a lack of access to health care and family planning.
9. Public Health and Population Growth: a Visual Essay – An elegantly narrated video on communicable disease, the filmmaker smartly shares a realistic two part solution of eradication and surveillance.
10. 7 Billion People Reducing Air Quality – A hand using markers to draw on a white board helps create this warning message on air pollution and the associated health risks, including premature death.
11. Spread of Communicable Disease – This video’s message of population growth and the ease at which diseases can spread is straightforward and clearly represents the extent of the student filmmaker’s research.
12. A step for our population – Through providing hygiene kits in areas that lack proper sanitation and by teaching proper hygiene to our youngest generations, this film suggests a unique solution to the spread of disease.
Water Scarcity and Population
13. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Water – The link between economic development and water use is made clear through graphics, messaging, and straightforward statistics in this video.
14. How Water Can Change a Girl’s Life – The filmmaker’s unique approach – she walked around her block carrying 5 gallons of water to get a tiny glimpse of what many girls all over the world do every day – creates a strong message on how access to water often links to female education levels.
15. A.I.D.-R-Planet Project – These filmmakers took the solution to water scarcity to the next level, inventing a shippable kit that would include a drip irrigation system, an inflatable rainwater catcher, and water purifier.
16. Think – In this video, the message of population growth stressing water supply is not only heard, but seen through original paintings created as the camera rolls.
17. What Would We Do Without Water? – The conversational and inviting tone of this video’s narration pulls in the viewer and allows the film time to cover important information about how humans are using water.
18. The More, The Less – Focusing on the epic amount of trash human’s create, the video links our garbage to water pollution and eventually to ways people can clean the water and thus be part of the solution.