UW News

May 12, 2015

Top student climate change films to screen May 15 at Town Hall

UW News

Short clips ranging from Claymation and music videos to documentary and animated shorts that tell the story of what climate change means to local high school and college students will be shown in a first-ever video contest put on by the UW’s School of Environmental and Forest Sciences.

Ten of the top three-minute videos will be screened at Town Hall in Seattle at 7 p.m. Friday, May 15. A panel of judges that includes musical and film talents as well as experts in natural resources will discuss the students’ work and choose winners in each category.

The judges are Annie Leonard, executive director of Greenpeace USA; Paul Miller, (a.k.a. DJ Spooky) a composer, multimedia artist and writer; Randy Olson, a scientist-turned-filmmaker; and Lisa Graumlich, dean of the UW’s College of the Environment.

The event is free and open to the public; registration is available online.

photos of the contest judges

Left to right: Annie Leonard, Paul Miller (DJ Spooky), Randy Olson, Lisa Graumlich.

The contest’s organizers received more than 90 video submissions, most of which were from high school students throughout Washington state. In some cases, entire classrooms were involved in filming and editing the short videos.

Students were asked to creatively express how they feel about climate change and their videos could address impacts, challenges and solutions related to a changing climate at any scale, from an individual’s day-to-day life to a nation or the entire world.

Contest organizers whittled down the entries to 10 finalists, or five in each age category. All 10 films will be shown Friday night, and judges will pick a top winner and runner-up for each age group. The winners will take home a $5,000 prize.

Read more about the contest and judges on the school’s Offshoots blog.