Population Education, September 2025

Written by Sally Watanabe, Student Engagement Fellow | Published: September 8, 2025

Messages on Innovation and Adaptability

Winners of the 2024–2025 Student Video Contest

This year, we celebrated the 14th annual World of 8 Billion International Student Video Contest, with over 3,250 submissions from students in 67 countries and 45 states plus DC. Our global topics included Child Wellbeing, Rainforest Ecosystems, and Sanitation. We were inspired by the effort students put into researching and brainstorming creative, sustainable solutions to issues related to these themes. Through the winning videos, our staff learned about composting toilets, bioremediation techniques, solar-powered vaccine refrigerators, and more. Winners were judged by 51 global experts in sustainability, education, and activism.

Nearly 300 teachers used the contest as a vehicle for diving deeper into engaged citizenship in their classrooms. For the first time, we offered mini grants of up to $500, which helped 17 teachers purchase cameras, microphones, and editing software. More than 500 students, mostly from Title I schools, were able to participate in the contest due to these grants.

This year’s winners inspired us with their innovative and adaptable approaches to improving child wellbeing, protecting rainforest ecosystems, and advancing sanitation through the lens of climate change and population growth. The insightful one-minute videos offer us hope for the future as we think critically about how to sustainably and equitably share resources and preserve them for future generations. In recognition of their thoughtful and creative work, high school winners received $1,200 for first place, $600 for second place, and $300 for honorable mention. Middle school winners received $600 for first place and $300 for second place.

To celebrate the winners, we hosted a virtual film screening in early June, attended by the students, their families and teachers, and Population Connection staff. You can explore this year’s winning videos and learn about their student producers here.


Child Wellbeing

1st Place, High School

Immunizing the World: Solar Powered Vaccine Refrigerators

Ha Jin Sung, Choate Rosemary Hall, Wallingford, CT

Ha Jin is an accomplished viola player and dancer and is passionate about biology and public health. She combined her interests in science and medicine with the power of advocacy to create her video, which highlights the emerging technology of solar-powered vaccine refrigerators. She hopes that this solution can increase access to life-saving immunizations for children living in rural areas.


2nd Place, High School

Young Lives, Big Struggles

Khyati Boruah, Sarala Birla Gyan Jyoti, Guwahati, Assam, India

Khyati is passionate about making videos and wanted to create one on child wellbeing as she could relate to the topic, being a young person herself. She already knew that India’s population is growing but was surprised to learn that teenage pregnancy is a large reason for population growth. She plans to pursue a medical career and wants to continue to work on child wellbeing issues.

1st Place, Middle School

Brighter Future for Every Child

Rukhshona Isakova, Ismatulloh Bakhtiyorov, and Yulduz Juliboyeva, Presidential School, Jizzakh City, Uzbekistan

Rukshona, Ismatulloh, and Yulduz teamed up to create a video envisioning a more equitable future for children by investing in education, sustainable farming, and health care. Rukshona studies physics and engineering and hopes to one day work for NASA. Ismatulloh is a multimedia artist and musician. Yulduz is passionate about historical fiction and aspires to be a writer.

2nd Place, Middle School

Overcoming Food Insecurity for Children

Hasini Dharmireddy and Advika Raut, Central Middle School, Eden Prairie, MN

Hasini and Advika wanted to raise awareness about food insecurity, which is something they knew a growing population exacerbated, specifically in India, where they are both from. Hasini wants to go into the medical field. She is a chess champion and plays basketball, soccer, and badminton. Advika is a dancer and artist and created most of the drawings for their video.


Rainforest Ecosystems

1st Place, High School

The Bioremediation Blueprint: Restoring Rainforests

Anwitha Aruva and Hannah Allas, Santa Clara High School, Santa Clara, CA

Anwitha and Hannah focused on bioremediation as a natural process to break down pollutants in the environment because it is a lesser-known sustainable solution to the health of ecosystems. Anwitha is interested in integrating sustainability into business and enjoys volunteering, reading, and baking. Hannah is interested in biology, plays the piano, and is involved in Girl Scouts and color guard.

2nd Place, High School

Deforestation of Rainforests

Katelyn Emdee, James River High School, Midlothian, VA

Katelyn chose the topic of rainforests because she wanted to learn more about a subject she hadn’t explored before. She focused her video on practical steps individuals can take to help save the rainforest, hoping to inspire others. Katelyn was a senior in high school when she submitted her video and is now attending Virginia Tech to study engineering. She enjoys baking and likes to unwind by playing video games.

1st Place, Middle School

Rainforest Deforestation

Alisha Wald, Mandela International School, Santa Fe, NM

Alisha’s video addresses her concerns about human-driven deforestation, seen firsthand at her grandparents’ home in Malaysia. Using skills from her math class, Alisha created meaning out of the data she found to add credibility to her video. She is interested in engineering, aerospace, and the environment, and has won awards at the New Mexico Science and Engineering Fair and in the Aldo Leopold Writing Contest.

2nd Place, Middle School

The Scoop on Poop

Chloe Robbin, Olivia Whee, and Charlotte Naughton, Bedford Middle School, Westport, CT

This trio was inspired to make their video after learning how elephant dung can be used to make paper products, reducing deforestation in rainforest ecosystems. They all love animals and wanted to raise awareness about human-caused threats to wildlife habitats. Although this was their first time creating a video for a contest, they are already working on producing more films.


Sanitation

1st Place, High School

Flushing Out the Crisis: Ending Open Defecation in Uganda

Lynette Mujaasi Kaye, Viva College, Jinja, Uganda

Lynette was motivated to create her video by seeing firsthand the consequences of open defecation in her community, noting that families often have six to eight children and lack access to toilets and handwashing facilities. She enjoys writing for a menstrual non-profit and has a small business making bracelets in her free time. Lynette hopes to have a career as a lawyer or journalist.

2nd Place, High School  

Sustaining Sanitation

Noelle Kim, Fairmont Preparatory Academy, Anaheim, CA

Noelle is interested in the relationship between climate change and sanitation challenges in crowded cities. Her video investigates composting toilets, rainwater collection, and artificial wetlands to preserve freshwater resources. She has led student teams in other innovation contests and is now a freshman at Caltech, pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering.

1st Place, Middle School

Rain, Runoff, and 8 Billion: How Population Growth Pollutes Our Water

David and Danny Unatin, Manhattan Beach Middle School, Manhattan Beach, CA

Brothers David and Danny addressed the issue of water pollution runoff due to impermeable surfaces in urban areas in their video. Spending time at a lifeguard camp and learning how to help animals that wash up on shore sparked their motivation for this video topic. They contacted the UCLA SEALab and filmed part of the video in their lab, highlighting experiments studying groundwater quality and soil health.

2nd Place, Middle School  

EcoSan Toilets: The Future to Sanitation Access

Aakriti Kurudumale and Sarah Zhou, Central Middle School, Eden Prairie, MN

Aakriti and Sarah took on the challenge of creating an educational video for the first time and drawing animations to explain how human waste can be transformed into plant fertilizer. Outside of making videos, Aakriti enjoys performing as a ballroom, jazz, and ballet dancer, while Sarah is a musician and competes on her school’s Science Olympiad team.


High School Honorable Mentions

Transit for Children in a World of 8 Billion

Josephine Lee, Bergen County Academies, Hackensack, NJ

Education for New Generations

Kelly Guo, Gretchen Whitney High School, Cerritos, CA

Hemp: The Future of Forests

Naya Shalish, The Newman School, Boston, MA

The Rainforest Pharmacy

Sophia Swink and Owen Yang, Elizabethton High School, Elizabethton, TN

Sun to Seat

Harshita Somani, Inventure Academy, Bangalore, Karnataka, India

Flush the Crisis, Sanitation’s Fight

Ha Vy Le, College Miles Macdonell Collegiate Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada


Pamela Wasserman: pwasserman@populationeducation.org

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