2020 High School Winners

Lilli Goodrich is a freshman at McNeil High School in Austin, Texas. Lilli found out about the contest from her World Geography teacher, who assigned the contest, and left it up to students to decide on entering their submission. A lifelong lover of all things water, Lilli was immediately attracted to the Sustaining Water Systems topic. Her research started by watching previous contest winners and then sketching a story board to guide her video making process. Through her research, Lilli learned about the connections between water systems and population, she shared she was surprised to learn that, “there are so many people without water and then the people that do have water abuse it.”

For her video, Lilli decided to create an animation. This was her first time animating, and lucky for her, her brother loaned her a sketch pad which made the entire process a little easier. Lilli is an avid sketcher and painter, and these two skills came in handy as she drew all of her animations for her video! The toughest part of the project was teaching herself to animate, while making her video. Lilli shared some advice for future contest participants, “Really put time into it. You can’t throw something together overnight and expect to go far.” She plans to put her prize money into savings, or perhaps dabble in investing in the stock market.

Lilli is on the drill team at school and is already thinking about college and her career goals, she shared, “I want to major in psychology and hopefully go into the field of criminal profiling.” When she isn’t animating, Lilli enjoys drawing and painting cartoon characters, profiles, and black and white sketches.